The Western Australian government has kicked off its highly anticipated project to build a new sports stadium in Perth by naming the WESTADIUM consortium as its preferred tenderer to design, build, finance and maintain the site.

The WESTADIUM consortium is led by Brookfield Financial and John Laing, with Brookfield Multiplex as the builder and Brookfield Johnson Controls as the facilities manager.

The naming of the preferred bidder follows four months of negotiations with three consortia whose bids the government has said were all “world class”.

If WESTADIUM is selected as the contractor, the consortium will build and operate the 60,000 seat stadium valued at $900 million to be completed by the time the 2018 AFL season begins.

Mr Barnett said that WESTADIUM represented the best overall value for money for the design and construction phase plus the contract’s 25 year maintenance period.

The negotiations surrounding the tender are expected to conclude in mid-2014.

Until then, the government will seek to reach final agreement on all of the terms and conditions to design, build, finance and maintain the new stadium.

The government also has its bases covered in case the negotiations with WESTADIUM don’t work out, as State Cabinet has approved the appointment of the Confidem consortium as the ‘reserve respondent’.

The government already started work on the new stadium in June 2013 on the Burswood Peninsula, which became a source of controversy the following month when local government politics crept in.

The Peninsula presently falls under the jurisdiction of the Town of Victoria Park, but when Mr Barnett announced a plan to overhaul local government boundaries, the Town slammed the City of Perth for planning to annex the Peninsula that also contains the James Packer-owned Crown Casino.

The local government predicament aside, the new stadium is expected to bring significant changes to the Burswood Peninsula such as future development and new public transport infrastructure leading to and from the facility.