The chances of Carlton's home ground being revived as an AFL venue appears to be all but over following the Blues' announcement of an $18 million re-development of Princes Park.

As part of the development, the ground - which has also been formerly known as Optus Oval and MC Labour Park - will be known as Visy Park as part of former president Richard Pratt's long-running financial support of the club.

The re-development will house a new state-of-the-art training facility for the Blues, which club chief executive Greg Swann has said will be 'one of the most environmentally friendly buildings, certainly in the sporting industry but in any industry for that matter.'

But to enable the re-development to proceed, the Blues have had to demolish both the Heatley and Harris Stands - dropping the ground's capacity from 32,000 to around 20,000.

And according to Swann that means the ground - which has hosted the second most number of games in AFL history behind the MCG - is now unlikely to ever return as an AFL venue despite the league recently saying it was interested in establishing a third ground in Melbourne to host low-drawing matches.

The need for a third stadium has also come about due to both the inability of clubs to gain lucrative stadium deals at Telstra Dome - in the same manner as the non-Victorian clubs have been able to achieve at venues such as Subiaco and the Gabba - and the fact that with the addition of two new teams by 2012 more matches will have to be staged in Victoria thus increasing the wear and tear on both the MCG and Telstra Dome.

Carlton's centrally located ground - which was last used for AFL matches in 2005 having been a league venue from the competition's inception in 1897 - would have been the logical choice for any third venue, if the AFL decided to pursue that option.

But despite still regularly hosting VFL and TAC Cup matches as well as pre-season AFL practice matches, Swann said on Wednesday he doubts whether Princes Park will ever again host official AFL matches given the Blues' new re-development.

"It's a fantastic opportunity for the club and it brings our facilities up to equal of any in the world," he said.

"But it's a training facility, with a whole lot of community facilities within it and that has been the emphasis of the re-development."

Swann said the capacity of the ground was now down to around 20,000.

"As you can see from that area (which has been demolished) we have lost quite a bit of seating," he said.

"And while it's not beyond the realms (of possibility of the ground again being used as an AFL venue) it's highly, highly unlikely that we would be hosting games here (in the future)."