The USOC selects Boston as U.S. bid to host the 2024 Olympic & Paralympic Games

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Headline when it all crumbles:
 
"The Big Jig is Up!"
 

SumnerH

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And when the insider gambling case comes out, that'll be: "The Big Jig is Up: Big Vig lands Big Gig Bigwig in Brig!"
 

Toe Nash

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So UMass got FOIAed and released the full "bid book" to journalists. This is what was submitted to the USOC in December. The Boston2024 team had put it on their website, but they had put up a different version that painted a rosier picture.
 
Notably, the bid book admitted they would be using public money to pay for some things, which the team has denied to the public to this day.
 
Couple articles overviewing the situation:
 
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2015/05/27/boston-2024-bid-book/
http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2015/05/27/boston-2024-report-highlights-need-for-public.html
 
Also, since this thread was last updated, John Fish has been replaced as chair by Steve Pagliuca and our pal Larry Lucchino has officially joined the bid.
 
Combine this with the FIFA arrests and it's not looking good for the bid. I'm against it but they really, really flubbed this up. There's probably a way to do it right, or at least to convince enough important people that it should happen that others fall in line, but they completely blew it. They weren't transparent from the beginning, they didn't sell the plan enough to important people (for example, Friends of the Public Garden weren't informed of the plan to have volleyball on the Common before the plan was submitted, got mad, and they had to retract the idea) and they totally underestimated the opposition (or even that there would be organized opposition).
 
Notably, the Globe was nowhere on any of this reporting and has been basically upbeat on the bid the entire time. They look bad too.
 
Just mistake after mistake.
 

Fred not Lynn

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I am deeply saddened by this bid, at this time. Boston could be a fantastic Olympic host city, but a poorly executed bid will kill that, forever.
 

Toe Nash

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I'm not really sure what an acceptable Boston bid would look like unless the IOC changes a lot of their rules. They would have to build a stadium, aquatics center, velodrome for the ceremony, so that's a lot of money, and none of them have much use post-Olympics. They can't even use the Boston Marathon route because it's too hilly for the IOC. Gillette doesn't really make sense since it's far away, and even if they solved the funding issue there's not a lot of space anywhere in the city that doesn't have plans already (and the suburbs don't want you to build near them).
 
I think the Big Dig killed the Olympics already -- no one really believed that they could pull this off without huge cost overruns and taxpayers being on the hook. The failure of the T over the winter killed the rest of it as people realized the government couldn't figure out how to keep that working over the last 20 years. Boston is also booming and they can't build housing fast enough -- it's unclear that they need this to jumpstart the economy or put them on the map (if there is any truth to that idea). The team could have done much better but it was a losing proposition from the start in my opinion.
 
Boston is one of the few cities that hasn't put up millions of public money to build any sports stadiums (historic tax credits for Fenway notwithstanding) and all its sports teams seem to be doing fine. Menino and residents said hell no to Kraft in the 90s when he wanted to build a Southie stadium...and this is an order of magnitude greater.
 

Fred not Lynn

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I disagree that things like a velodrome and an aquatic center would be of little post Games use. Boston is one of the biggest cities in the US without a velodrome nearby, and aquatics centers are common, popular facilities. As long as venues like those are built as sane and sustainable buildings instead of crazy architectural temples to the Olympic brand, they have real and lasting legacy value.

The IOC has changed their rules and expectations with the 2020 initiative - basically forced by the lack of a really suitable 2022 Winter Games bidder - but no one in the "Oh my GOD, NO Olympics!" camp seems to have noticed.
 

Toe Nash

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I'm aware of the new rules, and presumably the bidders are as well, and they still came up with a proposal that has a lot of ostentatious waste.
 
I won't rehash old arguments (except the velodrome really is a useless thing, and I am one of the few people who would actually use it -- there is a reason why there are so few in this country), but I'll just add that it seems to me that the main problem is it's a race to the bottom. Even if they did craft a smart, sustainable Games plan that didn't use public money and had real lasting benefits (which they're nowhere near at this point, so it's moot), they would lose the bid to another country who was perhaps less democratic and promised more to the "persuadable" IOC. Just doesn't seem like a race that's worth winning.
 

moly99

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Fred not Lynn said:
The IOC has changed their rules and expectations with the 2020 initiative - basically forced by the lack of a really suitable 2022 Winter Games bidder - but no one in the "Oh my GOD, NO Olympics!" camp seems to have noticed.
 
The reforms change the actual bidding process. Hosts still need to build all of the venues, housing, transportation, etc. The only change to venue requirements is that bid committees can use a bobsledding track outside of the host city. That would help Denver or Seattle host the winter games, but it does nothing for Boston.
 

axx

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The only reason it's not already dead is because the construction union mob is so tied in with Marty Walsh. LA at least you probably (?) wouldn't have to build most of the facilities. Even then it's not really something worth going after.
 
I still prefer the US to try to steal Qatar's World Cup bid; that makes more sense and you wouldn't have to spend billions on something people wouldn't use outside of the competition.
 

Fred not Lynn

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What are these billion dollar specialty sports venues that won't get used again? Seriously, a velodrome doesn't cost that much, a pool doesn't cost that much. The main stadium is your big spend - the so-called "white elephant" minor venues are really a drop in the bucket, and turn out to be pretty useful after the fact because they're pretty rare. L.A. Built a velodrome for 1984, and since then they've built a whole new one because it's an actual useful asset to the community.
 

moly99

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Fred not Lynn said:
What are these billion dollar specialty sports venues that won't get used again? Seriously, a velodrome doesn't cost that much, a pool doesn't cost that much. The main stadium is your big spend - the so-called "white elephant" minor venues are really a drop in the bucket, and turn out to be pretty useful after the fact because they're pretty rare. L.A. Built a velodrome for 1984, and since then they've built a whole new one because it's an actual useful asset to the community.
 
An outdoor 400m concrete velodrome costs as little as $500,000. Yet London's velodrome cost roughly $175 million in 2015 dollars. A 50m community swimming pool costs about $750,000. The London Aquatics Center cost over $450 million in 2015 dollars. (Gillette Stadium cost $426 million in 2015 dollars.) That's the issue Boston 2024 advocates are missing.
 
The idea that these venues are community assets is laughable. The Olympics do not require a community swimming pool. They require a palace that will look good on television, and because it has to be delivered on a deadline every company that does business with the host has massive leverage to screw them on cost.
 

WayBackVazquez

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Fred not Lynn said:
What are these billion dollar specialty sports venues that won't get used again? Seriously, a velodrome doesn't cost that much, a pool doesn't cost that much. The main stadium is your big spend - the so-called "white elephant" minor venues are really a drop in the bucket, and turn out to be pretty useful after the fact because they're pretty rare. L.A. Built a velodrome for 1984, and since then they've built a whole new one because it's an actual useful asset to the community.
LA only needed to build three venues, and they had the advantage of weather that places like London and Boston don't. So it was much cheaper to build the outdoor velodrome and aquatic center, and they got 7-11 and McDonald's to foot the bills.
 

moly99

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And to further clarify, temporary venues do not save that much money either. Historically temporary venues cost roughly 75% of the cost of a permanent stadium or arena. When you consider that London's aquatics center was already half temporary (most of the seating was temporary, and the pools were permanent) that means an aquatics center for Boston won't cost any less that $350 million in 2015 dollars.
 
Their statement that the games would be fully privately funded at $5 billion is a flat out lie. Security in London cost $1.8 billion, so it wouldn't be less than $2 billion in the USA, which has even stricter security and customs than the UK. Their own estimate puts the operational budget at $3 billion. That's the entire $5 billion budget used up before accounting for:
  • sports venue construction
  • convention hall construction
  • international broadcast center construction
  • transportation construction and upgrades
  • olympic village construction
  • land acquisition
  • debt servicing
  • marketing
  • mandatory cultural programs ("the Cultural Olympiad")
  • legal fees and payouts to groups damaged by hosting the Olympics (IE all of the billboards in the city have to be reserved for Olympic sponsors)
  • etc
There are dozens of other costs I can't think of on the spur of the moment. One way or another the cost is going to be WAY above $5 billion, and the extra cost is going to be laid at the doorstep of governments. You can argue that it will be federal taxes that pay for it instead of city taxes or state taxes. But that's still leaving taxpayers with the obligation to fund a massive boondoggle that will only benefit property developers and construction firms at the expense of people who actually live and work in the city.
 

Toe Nash

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Fred not Lynn said:
What are these billion dollar specialty sports venues that won't get used again? Seriously, a velodrome doesn't cost that much, a pool doesn't cost that much. The main stadium is your big spend - the so-called "white elephant" minor venues are really a drop in the bucket, and turn out to be pretty useful after the fact because they're pretty rare. L.A. Built a velodrome for 1984, and since then they've built a whole new one because it's an actual useful asset to the community.
The original plan called for the velodrome to be turned into some kind of community facility after the olympics ("think dance complex" said the organizers) because no one wants a damn velodrome.
 
Anyway along with what others have posted there are two major issues to me beyond just the probable cost overruns and the inconvenience.
 
1. Circumventing the planning process / land grabbing: 
Massachusetts is bad at regional cooperation, but there have been some steps in the right direction towards really developing an urban planning process that works for multiple stakeholders and develops healthy neighborhoods, cities and regions. The Olympics would circumvent and basically supercede all of this for the benefit of a few developers and construction companies. Examples:
-in 2013 the Boston Redevelopment Authority completed the Fort Point Master Plan (http://www.bostonredevelopmentauthority.org/planning/planning-initiatives/fort-point-district-planning-%28100-acres%29) where they engaged the community and developed a plan that most are happy with. This is where Boston 2024 decided to put the media center, and even if they follow the plan with the land afterwards (unlikely) you're putting a ten-year hold on the plan that has already been agreed upon.
-Harvard has been buying land in Allston for a long time and while it's been contentious they at least are making some concessions to the community regarding expanding into Allston. Again, the Olympics would accelerate this and there wouldn't be time for community input.
-The potential olympic stadium site is currently the site of the New Boston Food Market where a bunch of food wholesalers are located (http://www.dotnews.com/2014/we-re-not-sale-powerful-interests-circle-site-southie-line). Maybe it's a good idea to move them and build housing there, but I think they should have some say in that instead of their land being taken.
-The Mayor just announced an effort to make a comprehensive plan for the city of Boston which would be the first since 1965, called Boston 2030. Of course, kind of hard to do that when he also wants the Olympics as I doubt the two plans will mix well.
 
2. Sort of related to #1, opportunity cost:
-Even if it magically ends up being fully privately funded, that's private money that can't be used for other things.
 
-Some of the post-Games plans for the Olympics land would be good for the region -- if the olympics village becomes housing, that makes sense and is needed. If the stadium site becomes a mixed-use neighborhood, then yeah, that's good (if it becomes a soccer stadium paid for with public $, not so much). But if the land is just taken and the infrastructure built based on what is best for the Olympics, it's not going to be designed for what's best for the city. This is basically urban planning 1960s-style, where a few elites decided what was best for the city and built it. What we have now is messy but in its best cases it works a lot better.
 
Honestly all the supporters that I have come across either think it would be great as a spectator or have something directly to gain from it and the most convincing argument they can come up with is "oh, it won't be that bad". Boston is already building as fast as it can get projects approved. People want to live here and jobs want to locate here. No, it's not NY, but nowhere is.
 

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the other Athens

 

 
Before - Atlanta Olympics aquatic center.  Open air, covered - some stands temporary. Built on GA Tech campus.
 
After -  Converted to campus recreation center with additional gym facilities after Olympics.
 

 
 

 
 
 

moly99

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The Atlanta games were absolutely HATED by the sporting federations. I don't think the IAAF would ever agree to another baseball stadium as the venue for track and field, for example.
 
Venue and transportation expectations have also changed dramatically from 1996. Atlanta had small to medium venues all throughout the state. That won't fly for the IOC in 2024 unless there's train transport to the venues. Nobody wants to have to drive in a foreign country after an intercontinental flight while they have jetlag. Boston will also need large and spectacular venues if it is going to win the bidding contest against a city like Paris.
 

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It was not a track and field stadium. It was a baseball stadium with a track in it.
 
The stadium was a standard baseball stadium that was merely extended with extra seats in the outfield. The majority of the seats in the stadium were aligned for optimal views of a baseball diamond rather than track and field. It looked terrible on both the broadcast and for the spectators in the stands.
 
Atlanta is the only time the USA has ever won a contested race for the summer games. There are rumors about how exactly Atlanta was chosen that dwarf Salt Lake City's scandal and are more similar to how Japan won the Sapporo winter games. (Call girls and suitcases of cash.) To be frank, I think it's the only explanation that makes sense. There's no way Atlanta would have won an Olympic bid in the current environment.
 

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Monbo Jumbo said:
Does Atlanta still hold the record for total attendance at an Olympics?
 
I never saw final figures but London was on course to break it pretty late in the games--if they didn't, they came very close. (London also got 50% higher TV viewership as well).
 

moly99

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Paris officially declares it will pursue the Olympics, and will do so without having a referendum.
 
It's a sad state of affairs when a proud republic like France decides that allowing a public decision to move forward or not is a critical weakness to an Olympic bid. Unfortunately I think they are right. We seem to be rapidly heading to a point where democracies will no longer want to host events like the Olympics and the World Cup due to the sheer gigantism and costs of the events.
 

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Some improvement, but still "TBD" on some major sites:
-Velodrome (hi Fred not Lynn!)
-Aquatics Center
-Press Center
 
These are all sites with major footprints, limited post-games use, and plenty of cost. The press center probably also has to be in Boston proper, or close. 
 
Will they have this information before the referendum?
 

Fred not Lynn

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1. Press center is probably the easiest of all venues to repurpose. Even in the Athens and Sarajevo white-elephant photo galleries of decrepit past sites you don't see ruins of the press center.

2. In a city of untold numbers of colleges and universities, one of those institutions will do well with a new aquatic center. Swimming and diving are pretty common sports in New England. With good design, it should be a scalable venue - none of those institutions need a 10,000 seat pool...

3. At worst, the actual Olympic velodrome can be repurposed into a modest capacity arena/ice hockey rink. If that does happen, it would behoove the organizing committee to set aside additional funding to leave New England with a modest outdoor velodrome. It's pretty much the only well populated region of the country without one, and in the big picture of Olympic spending, the cost is nominal.
 

Comfortably Lomb

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Why do we need a velodrome at all? How many people want one let alone have heard of such a thing? Pretending that is a benefit is insane. It's money burnt.

Why is handball in Worcester? The DCU is successful on its own without that freakshow of an event. Why are fencing, taekwando, and rowing in Lowell? To placate Central MA into eventually bearing the cost of this thing? There is zero chance this doesn't end up costing people in MA and the people pushing this think a couple second tier events outside of Boston will buy off the rest of the state. What a joke.
 

moly99

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Fred not Lynn said:
3. At worst, the actual Olympic velodrome can be repurposed into a modest capacity arena/ice hockey rink.
 
Velodromes are actually the size of a track and field stadium (without as many seats, of course) not an ice hockey rink.
 
London's velodrome (which was half-temporary) cost $160 million in 2015 dollars.
 

Fred not Lynn

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moly99 said:
 
Velodromes are actually the size of a track and field stadium (without as many seats, of course) not an ice hockey rink.
A velodrome can be anywhere from 150m to 500m or more in circumferemce, with 250m and 333m being the most common sizes in use. Most recent Olympic Games have had the steeper, shorter 250m track if I recall correctly, which has as its infield a space similar to an ice hockey rink.

A typical portable velodrome as used for the traditional European 6 day races fits right into a typical indoor arena, but those tracks are typically considered a little too steep and tight at a length of under 200m around for the Olympic track cycling events.

Combined with the need for much less seating, an Olympic velodrome would have a much smaller footprint than the main track and field stadium.

As far as post Games use is concerned; Road cycling is incredibly strong in New England, with major races attracting hundreds of competitors and thousands of spectators pretty much every weekend. Other velodromes in the US generally have popular, exciting weekly racing events - broken into numerous events separated by level, with the pro races often attracting several thousand spectators at the more popular tracks. There's no reason to believe a well located, well run New England velodrome wouldn't see comparable use.

I think people sometimes need to get their head around the fact that just because a given facility doesn't directly serve their needs, the diversity it brings to a city or a region is still of net benefit to society and everyone's quality of life.

That said, I preach great modesty in conceptualizing these venues. The Olympic Games in particular have generated some very expensive, unnecessarily elaborate facilities which when they become a civic burden after the Games paint all such venues with a bad brush - leading to the sorts of comments and opinions we see here.
 

moly99

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Fred not Lynn said:
A velodrome can be anywhere from 150m to 500m or more in circumferemce, with 250m and 333m being the most common sizes in use. Most recent Olympic Games have had the steeper, shorter 250m track if I recall correctly, which has as its infield a space similar to an ice hockey rink.
 
I checked the cycling federation website and it seems 250m is the required length for the Olympics. That being the case I have to question why my local park has a 400m velodrome, but that's another issue.
 
If a velodrome can fit in an arena, why do we need a purpose-built velodrome at all? With a bit of googling, it seems that Melbourne has used a standard arena for a velodrome.
 

Fred not Lynn

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Well, you don't. Kind of. I doubt New England has an existing arena that could fit a 250m velodrome (Melbourne was a long time ago - quite possible that the 250m minimum didn't apply then and they just used a 6-day track). However, a new arena that could accommodate a 250m track that would later be dismantled and replaced by seating would be a reasonable addition to the inventory of mid-sized sports venues in the region. You'd also then have that legacy facility that's important to the region, as the modular track could be erected elsewhere in New England as an outdoor facility.
 
Where is your local park? Likely that your velodrome was built a long time ago. 400m Velodromes are rarely built new these days.
 

Cellar-Door

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moly99 said:
 
Velodromes are actually the size of a track and field stadium (without as many seats, of course) not an ice hockey rink.
 
London's velodrome (which was half-temporary) cost $160 million in 2015 dollars.
London's was also probably the biggest showpiece of the whole construction. A smaller seating capacity one made in Toronto this year cost $46M. An Olympic quality and capacity Velodrome probably could be done under $100M. Of course the problem is what to do with it afterwards. My intial thought was that maybe US Soccer and Robert Kraft would be willing to pony up money to convert it for soccer, but even once you rip out the track it's too narrow. Velodromes are one of the cheaper things to build in an Olympics, but they also are pretty useless after, and converting them to anything else is almost as expensive as the original construction maybe more.
 

Fred not Lynn

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Toronto's velodrome appears to be set up with a multi-use gym floor, with volleyball, basketball and other typical gym functionality. You could do the same with turf for indoor soccer, football, baseball, maybe hang batting cages and use those. Of the building area excluding seating, there seems to be more floor than there is velodrome - so what you've got is a nice, if not a little unique community rec center. The sort of rec center that gets built regularly.
 
I read a piece where the anti-Olympic people highlight the velodrome in a video; "Do you support more affordable housing or a velodrome?” an opponent asks passersby in a video produced by No Boston Olympics. One man’s response is typical: “I don’t know what a velodrome is,” he says, “but sounds unnecessary by the title.”...and I find that to be pretty sad and ignorant. Like, "Because I don't even know what it is, I don't want it!". "Because it's something outside of my current day to day existence, it must be bad and wasteful".
 
...seriously, if you're going to form an opinion about something, you come of as a moron when you say, "I don't know what it is..." and then express an opinion.
 
What if the question was; "Do you think it is important to have quality public recreation facilities nearby your affordable housing, so all the people who live in that high density development without yards can have a place to be active?", would the same answer be given?
 

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Well, if it's so easy then why haven't they identified a site for those (plus the other four or five sports that have no venue)? They have had months and the June date was specifically asked for by the Governor.
 
They are just trying to run out the clock until it is too late for opposition to do anything about it.
 
Comfortably Lomb, they have those venues across the state to try to spread the pork and get state politicians on board with the plan, otherwise they would complain that all the spending was in Boston like they normally do.
 

( . ) ( . ) and (_!_)

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If a temporary Velodrome can be put inside an existing arena and they are already committing to events in Worcester, then why not put the Velodrome in the Dunkin Donuts Center in Providence?  It's probably a stretch, but the jack asses running Rhode Island will jump at the chance to make Providence an "Olympic City" and finagle the state into paying for it.  This is exactly the type of typical RI bullshit that happens all the time.  Just unload the cost of the Velodrome to little Rhody.  Hell I wouldn't be shocked if they could finagle RI into chipping in for the overall cost of the games themselves if you threw an event or two down here.
 

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The idea that the public should pay for transit improvements does have some merit, but it begins to fall apart when you get into the details.  The revised drawing of the Olympic stadium in Newmarket Square shows an adjacent park extending to the Fort Point Channel.  Problem is, this is the site of the MBTA Red Line yards and bus garage in South Boston.  This facility (Cabot Shops) is the repair facility for the entire Red Line fleet.  The adjacent bus garage is one of the two largest on the T system and repairs and dispatches almost 20 percent of the authority's bus fleet.  Where are these facilities moving to and who will pay for this?  These facilities have decades of useful life left and are situated in an area that has always been used for transportation purposes - do people think that some other neighborhood or community is going to welcome a bus garage with open arms?  Is there a site anywhere in Dorchester, Quincy or Braintree large enough to build a train yard big enough to store 150 or so subway cars?
 

Fred not Lynn

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( . ) ( . ) and (_!_) said:
If a temporary Velodrome can be put inside an existing arena and they are already committing to events in Worcester, then why not put the Velodrome in the Dunkin Donuts Center in Providence?
 
The required 250m track won't fit in a typical arena. The velodromes that move in and out of arenas for the 6-day events in Europe are much shorter and steeper than what is used for the Olympic Games.
 
Note to any; If you're in Europe in the winter and the 6-day bike races are in town, go. It's one of the most amazing sports and entertainment events you'll ever see.
 

Toe Nash

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Globe weighs in on the media center, or lack thereof:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/07/10/still-plan-for-least-one-huge-and-obscure-olympic-venue/bE0u3FcMgmAXe3WAslkcnL/story.html?s_campaign=bostonglobe%3Asocialflow%3Atwitter
 
I agree with FNL that it would be seemingly easy to repurpose into an office building or something like that, but their current plan of renting out a bunch of space in various places seems...off. The original plan of using the expanded BCEC seemed fine -- why wouldn't they just use the current BCEC for most of it, and then maybe build another building nearby? There is land that should be available near there.
 

The Napkin

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Hasn't the globe been cheerleading this thing all along? But oh noes! The media might be inconvenienced a little bit? Things might not be as easy for some reporter from Bumfuck, Iowa? We can't have that!
 

Caspir

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Fred not Lynn said:
 
What if the question was; "Do you think it is important to have quality public recreation facilities nearby your affordable housing, so all the people who live in that high density development without yards can have a place to be active?", would the same answer be given?
Sounds great, I'm on board. With all the affordable housing in Boston, it should be easy to let us know where to put the super cool $100m recreational bike track where it will benefit low income residents who just need a space to hang out and ride once this shit show packs up.
 

Fred not Lynn

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Caspir said:
Sounds great, I'm on board. With all the affordable housing in Boston, it should be easy to let us know where to put the super cool $100m recreational bike track where it will benefit low income residents who just need a space to hang out and ride once this shit show packs up.
Did you read the whole thread? I am not talking about a "super cool built-for-Easter-Sunday" $100+ million single-purpose architectural showcase. I am talking about a modest, well designed building with strong post Games functionality beyond cycling - not unlike the multi use venue built in Toronto for the Pan Am Games for less than 1/2 what you state, or the speed skating oval built in Richmond, BC for the 2010 Winter Games which is packed with users from open to close daily.

Now, I should correct myself - the public recreation aspect of a building like this crosses class lines. It's far from the sort of thing that only those who live in so-called affordable housing need, it's something anyone who lives in high-density housing needs...because people Do need places to hang out, recreate and just plain play no matter where they live or how much their mortgage/rent is.

But you've already decided the whole things going to be a "shit-show" none of that really matters...
 

Caspir

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The broader point was that talking about affordable housing in Boston is like talking about bringing a new dinosaur zoo to town. Affordable housing doesn't exist in the city, period. There's been plenty written about it, which is why your comment seemed so off base.

And yea, it'll be a shit show. It already is, and they don't even have a final plan yet. Keep your Boston Olympic dream going though. It's off to a smashing start, and the people in Roxbury will be so grateful for a velodrome on the waterfront that they'll forget about the fact that their houses are collapsing around them to get them out and flip it into a condo.
 

Cellar-Door

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 1, 2006
34,461
Why are people making the Olympic site vs affordable housing comp? Does anyone really think that affordable housing is what would be going in if not for the Olympics?