HAVING angrily declared it would quit Moorabbin, the St Kilda Football Club is now expected to resurrect the original plans for a $10 million redevelopment of its home of the past 40 years.

The Saints have 12 days to commit to plans to remain at Moorabbin and sign a contract to buy public land from the local Kingston City Council. The offer by the council to sell the land will lapse on June 18.

St Kilda held a special board meeting last night and agreed to meet again with the council to continue negotiations.

The council has made a recommendation to the Gaming Commission that it would support the move of all 83 of the St Kilda Football Club Social Club's poker machines to a new venue 200 metres away in new premises on South Road. But the council also recommended that should the commission prefer to reduce the overall number of machines, it would "strongly support" a cut.

This recommendation infuriated the football club, which had based its budgets for the new social club on revenue from all 83 poker machines. St Kilda chief executive Archie Fraser angrily declared that the redevelopment plans were off and the club would leave Moorabbin and search for a new home.

Fraser was contradicted when St Kilda president Rod Butterss returned from overseas to say at the president's lunch before the match against Geelong on Sunday that the club needed to return to negotiations.

"If we walk away from the table and/or if (the council) walk away … we lose out, the local community loses out and, in fact, everyone loses out. It seems to be it's a case where common sense needs to prevail," he said.

That comment prompted the Kingston Mayor Topsy Petchey to write to Butterss to say that the council wanted St Kilda to remain at Moorabbin and was happy for talks to be renewed.