A long-hoped-for $6 million Volleyball SA facility with six national-sized beach volleyball courts, changing rooms, and a maintenance and storage shed is moving forward as the state gears up to host the sport’s international championships this November.

The Adelaide City Council’s City, Culture and Community Services Committee unanimously supported Volleyball SA’s pitch for a city beach at Bonython Park/Tulya Wardli on Tuesday night in front of a packed gallery of volleyball supporters.

With the go-ahead from the council – which will be formally voted on next week – Volleyball SA can put its plans to newly appointed sport minister Rhiannon Pearce and the state government for funding support.

They hoped a funding announcement for their local plan would coincide with the Beach Volleyball World Championships held at The Drive and Pinky Flat in November. Volleyball SA currently has no city home and wanted to leverage the championships in its bid to get a new, permanent beach volleyball site.

“We’re really hoping that this is a site that is a legacy item, but also a site that we can obviously replace Adelaide City Beach and keep beach volleyball on the radar in Adelaide as an international destination,” Volleyball SA CEO Karla Della Pietra told councillors on Tuesday.

About 1000 beach volleyball players used to frequent the Pirie and Frome Street beach volleyball courts each week before it was closed in 2022.

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A state government spokesperson told InDaily it is “in regular contact with Volleyball SA regarding the proposed Bonython Park facility”.

“Newly appointed Sports Minister Rhiannon Pearce is meeting with Volleyball SA in the coming weeks to further discuss the proposal,” the spokesperson said.

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The spokesperson confirmed the $6 million sought for the project would be considered in future budget deliberations.

Volleyball SA ran the former Pirie and Frome Street site for 20 years before it was sold to a private developer and became home to NEXTDC $100 million data centre.

“It was quite thriving and amazing, corporate lunch time opportunities, a lot of schools use the facility, and every night it was activated with social volleyball teams as well,” Della Pietra said.

Since then, Della Pietra said some players dispersed to Glenelg, Henley Beach and other sites, but beaches could be less predictable, with challenges like high tide and the harmful algal bloom keeping people off the sand.

The group’s website currently shares warnings about playing volleyball on Adelaide beaches as the current algal bloom impacts playing conditions.

Plans to create a new city beach site at the old Bonython Park netball courts were already approved by the council in 2021, but Della Pietra said the state government’s Office for Sport and Racing required approval from the new councillors appointed since then.

The site would be 70 square metres, including six courts, changerooms and a maintenance shed, and one third would be returned to park lands with open green space.

The old netball courts have been used for car parking since 1997, and park 340 cars. The Volleyball SA plan would keep 70 car parks, which would be open to the public.

“It has been an open public car space and a very ugly one for a very long time,” Councillor Phillip Martin said.

“I am one of those who felt a touch of nostalgia when this council made a decision that I opposed to sell that block of land because it contributed a great deal to the City of Adelaide.

“There was activity on that site in that part of the city, businesses benefited a great deal, but it is gone. It’s lost from that site, but I am delighted that it will be reborn, at least in the part of the city of Adelaide.”

Lord Mayor Jane Lomax-Smith said in Volleball SA’s planning, “they’ve done everything right”.

“They really tried really hard to be respectful of the park lands,” she said.

The council vote on approving Volleyball SA’s use of the site on Tuesday next week.

Final designs would still need future council approval and state government funding.