There's a new front-runner for the home of Canberra Stadium and it's a site that's synonymous with ACT rugby league.
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ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr's preference is for a new $500 million, 30,000-seat stadium to be built on a new site in what's being dubbed the Bruce sports, health and education precinct - rather than look to rebuild the existing stadium where it is.
He vowed the seventh study into a new stadium since 2009, which was announced on Wednesday, would be the last and he hoped the location would be finalised this year.
But Barr revealed the ACT government was looking at 11 locations in Bruce - of which three were the clear standouts.
One was the existing location, another was adjacent to the current stadium, but the third and preferred was to move closer to the public transport corridor on the corner of Haydon Drive and Battye Street.
There's already an oval there and it's also where the NSWRL Bruce headquarters were.
It's the former training base of the Canberra Raiders, who along with the ACT Brumbies, would be one of the main tenants.
A new Bruce stadium site's the preferred option after Barr moved on from the prospect of a Civic stadium.
It's thought either a complete knockdown of Canberra Stadium followed by a rebuild or a staged knockdown and rebuild would be too problematic.
A partial knockdown would lead to reduced capacity for several years as the Raiders and Brumbies played on a building site.
A complete knockdown would force both teams to find new homes - potentially Manuka Oval.
Barr said they would look to the federal government to help fund the new stadium, which was expected to be completed by 2033.
"The option that is emerging as the preferred one is a new stadium site within that precinct," he said on Wednesday.
"The team have examined 11 possible options within that broader Bruce precinct so we're doing some further technical due diligence on where is the best location.
"It is increasingly looking like closer to the public transport corridor and closer to the University [of Canberra] and the [CIT] would be the best option.
"The 11 locations gave a pretty clear hierarchy of what would work and what wouldn't.
"That gives you a short list of really two or three ... one of the three is the existing site, the other would be adjacent to the existing site and the third option would be the corner of Haydon Drive and Battye Street - where there is already an oval."
The government was working under the assumption the federal government will keep the AIS in Canberra.
They're yet to see the federal government's AIS report into whether a move to Queensland was feasible, despite it having an end-of-January deadline.
But Barr's discussions with his federal counterparts left him confident if would remain where it's always been.
He said if the AIS was to move to Queensland then the ACT would be "due a huge amount of compensation".
Barr was unsure if that would mean all the AIS land at Bruce would be returned to the people of Canberra.
"If that were the case then I would've thought the ACT would be due a huge amount of compensation for the loss of such a critical national sporting asset that's been in Canberra for decades and decades," he said.
"But I'm not expecting that. I don't rule it out as a possibility, but we are putting 99 per cent of our effort into what would a renewed precinct in partnership with the Commonwealth look like.
"I think it's exciting for what it could do for that part of Canberra."