Boston 2024

When it comes to international strengths...Paris has more than Boston. This is Paris we are talking about. Officially, an Alpha+ city. If Paris (already a stronger city than Boston) puts together a stronger bid then Boston: au revoir.
 
Equilibria: I think your post was relevant. How Paris is viewed internationally, and France's perceived stability will directly affect whether Paris gets selected by the IOC, and thus be a determining factor in Boston's selection.
 
bigeman312 said:
When it comes to international strengths...Paris has more than Boston. This is Paris we are talking about. Officially, an Alpha+ city. If Paris (already a stronger city than Boston) puts together a stronger bid then Boston: au revoir.
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Paris has a big telecom tower that is curvy so it looks cool, the louvre, a big arch and nice cafes and nice downtown areas. Lots of wine. These aren't insurmountable attributes. But we do need to do a lot better than what is currently on the table to make a competition out of this.

A good number of the world's political and corporate leaders came through Harvard. Don't discount that nostalgia. MIT is a tech mecca. And quite a few people still believe in Liberty and Boston's role in the Revolution. Boston has just as much going for it as Paris if we can put that together into a compelling plan.
 
I believe one of these Paris articles referred to Paris as the most visited City in the world. That, and it'd be the 100th anniversary of the last Olympic games held in Paris. Worked for Athens.

I consider both of those positives to a Paris bid over Boston. Not nails in the coffin by any means, but strong argumentative points for gay Paree.
 
Paris simply has put down a marker. Will any other bid be as good, or better?

But even Paris wonders if it has enough hotel rooms, hence the question of building a media village.

Their base numbers: 10,500 athletes for the Olympics; 4,500 athletes for the Para-Olympics. 20,000 media representatives. 70,000 volunteers. no numbers for security, but probably between 25,000 and 35,000.

The President of France visited the HQ of the IOC in Switzerland on Tuesday, and met with the Chair of the IOC. (The timing was not a coincidence) M. le President said that all of France was ready to mobilize in support of the Paris bid.

In reply, the head of the IOC said the Paris bid was exemplary,
"Cette candidature est exemplaire et si elle continue dans cet esprit vous avez tous les atouts et vous pouvez entrer dans cette candidature avec toute confiance", a déclaré le président du Comité international olympique devant la presse,
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http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/sp...2024-a-paris_1672125.html#gssSCQcwA4IoDHur.99
 
stellarfun said:
Paris simply has put down a marker. Will any other bid be as good, or better?

But even Paris wonders if it has enough hotel rooms, hence the question of building a media village.

Their base numbers: 10,500 athletes for the Olympics; 4,500 athletes for the Para-Olympics. 20,000 media representatives. 70,000 volunteers. no numbers for security, but probably between 25,000 and 35,000.

The President of France visited the HQ of the IOC in Switzerland on Tuesday, and met with the Chair of the IOC. (The timing was not a coincidence) M. le President said that all of France was ready to mobilize in support of the Paris bid.

In reply, the head of the IOC said the Paris bid was exemplary,


http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/sp...2024-a-paris_1672125.html#gssSCQcwA4IoDHur.99
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Sure they did. They also said Boston was promising. They wouldn't say anything else.

The reality here is this: Paris is making the same case London made. They know that 6B Euro is a BS estimate. They probably know that a third of these venues won't work, for the same reasons that Boston ran into. They also know that people simply won't challenge them in the way Boston was challenged, and they can tell the IOC: "We're a great bet. We'll spend $20B to do this. We're good for the money, and you have the government's complete support."

We all knew Paris would make that case, and we all expected it. It's not about Paris. It's about the crappyness of yesterday's announcements. If Boston put up a truly walkable, compact, cost-effective plan, I think we would have competed with Paris and possibly won. With core events scattered to the four winds? Probably not. Next week's plan had better be a lot better than it looks to be right now, because if it isn't it's not worth pursuing this any farther.
 
SeamusMcFly said:
That, and it'd be the 100th anniversary of the last Olympic games held in Paris. Worked for Athens.
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Actually, C̶o̶c̶a̶ ̶C̶o̶l̶a̶ ̶b̶r̶o̶u̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶g̶a̶m̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶A̶t̶l̶a̶n̶t̶a̶ Athens lost its bid to host 1996, which would've marked 100 years after its last time hosting.

Field hockey's replacement venue hasn't been announced, has it? If not at Harvard Stadium, I'd rather see it at Nickerson, but I'm starting to fear the nightmare scenario that they will ship it out to Brockton, Worcester or Providence.
 
tklalmighty, a problem with relying on private colleges and universities for so many of the venues is that these institutions have their own athletic programs, and for fall sports, practice begins in August. If Harvard were to give up the stadium for field hockey, where does the football team practice? Which is probably one reason why you see this drift of venues from those owned by private universities to public sector venues.

I believe most/all the venues that I have seen for Paris are owned by the state (at some level) or are owned by a sports federation. So one is not negotiating with an owner with competing priorities.
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equilibria, are you applying the same multiplier with respect to cost to Boston that you applied to Paris? And if so, who is picking up the $10 billion or so for cost overruns for Boston?
 
stellarfun said:
equilibria, are you applying the same multiplier with respect to cost to Boston that you applied to Paris? And if so, who is picking up the $10 billion or so for cost overruns for Boston?
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No, because Paris hasn't had its dose of reality yet, and Boston has. London estimated $5 billion TOTAL and ended up spending $15 billion. Paris is estimating about $6 billion (a euro is about a dollar at the moment).

Boston 2024 estimated $5 billion in operating costs and $5 billion in infrastructure for a total of approximately $10 billion. That's a more realistic number, especially since they're using a lot of low-cost venues in far-flung places. The stadium is obviously the big wild card, but Olympics do not happen for $3 billion in operating costs. Never. Boston 2024's numbers seem much more grounded in the real world than Paris's.
 
tklalmighty said:
Actually, Athens lost its bid to host 1996, which would've marked 100 years after its last time hosting.

Field hockey's replacement venue hasn't been announced, has it? If not at Harvard Stadium, I'd rather see it at Nickerson, but I'm starting to fear the nightmare scenario that they will ship it out to Brockton, Worcester or Providence.
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D'oh! You're right. Thank you for the Athens correction.

Is field Hockey that big of a draw that you think any of those would be a nightmare?
 
Boston's bid to the USOC was $8 billion, not $10 billion.

Infrastructure costs were
Olympic Village $2.5 billion (16,000 beds)
IBC/MPC $500 million
New stadium $200 million
Other venues new construction $200 million
Total $3.4 billion in infrastructure

Boston did not count costs of temporary venues in the infrastructure costs, and included these as an 'operating cost'.

Venue costs $700 million (for temporary venues, including the stadium. The $200 million for the stadium in infrastructure is either the 'sunk' cost if the stadium is moved elsewhere, or the residual value of the stadium if it is moved.)

Total Boston infrastructure is thus $4.1 billion; operating costs are $4.0 billion. ($4 billion = $3.57 billion euros at today's rate.
 
stellarfun said:
tklalmighty, a problem with relying on private colleges and universities for so many of the venues is that these institutions have their own athletic programs, and for fall sports, practice begins in August. If Harvard were to give up the stadium for field hockey, where does the football team practice? Which is probably one reason why you see this drift of venues from those owned by private universities to public sector venues.

I believe most/all the venues that I have seen for Paris are owned by the state (at some level) or are owned by a sports federation. So one is not negotiating with an owner with competing priorities.
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That may be a reason for the shifts, but the last two summer games in the US may actually suggest that colleges should be able to adapt to it. Georgia Tech actually compressed its academic calendar in 1996 to support the Atlanta games. Its campus was used for housing, aquatics and boxing. Sanford Stadium and Stegeman Coliseum were used for the duration of the games. USC and UCLA both offered up venues and housing in 1984. One would imagine those four programs alone would each have more reason to be concerned about their football programs being ready for the season than Harvard, but somehow it worked.

That said, you would definitely have to question the sports that were shifted around if that were really a motive. The initial fencing proposal utilized Bright and Gordon. Bright normally serves as the home of Harvard hockey, and Gordon the home for indoor track. Neither is a fall sport. Tennis is (officially, anyway) a spring sport, although they would regain use of the soccer field. With the field hockey relocation you theoretically regain Jordan Field for Harvard field hockey, but bringing in Archery results in a net of "only" about a week's worth of Harvard Stadium use regained by the university. Nickerson would potentially be needed for BU's soccer teams, but it doesn't have a varsity football program (and probably won't in 2024) that would require the space in July and August.

This also assumes that the fields will be outside the security zone while events are taking place nearby, which I find unlikely. If any of the colleges' venues are used during the games, count on just about all adjacent venues being necessarily off limits to the college for the duration. I can't imagine BC football will be able to use

Ultimately, my argument is that Boston's wealth of colleges is its greatest asset toward an Olympic bid, and that if there is any creative and feasible way to incorporate them and maximize their involvement in the bid, I believe they should. At its bare essentials, I view it as a trade of time for potentially upgraded facilities for the colleges. For instance, if aquatics stay put at Harvard, a downsized Olympic pool facility could end up being left for the university as a legacy of the games. Not that Harvard is in dire need of new sports facilities, but it would not be an insignificant incentive.

SeamusMcFly said:
D'oh! You're right. Thank you for the Athens correction.

Is field Hockey that big of a draw that you think any of those would be a nightmare?
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Not as much by itself. I'm referring more to the principle of casting events outside the city. On the flip side, I do think the concept of a walkable games can apply to Boston's plan, even the venues outside the city, so long as there are several sports and venues clustered together.

So thinking about it a little more, Brockton does have the potential to serve an entire mini-cluster of venues if it wished. Marciano Stadium could be used for an event like field hockey, Campanelli as either a secondary venue for field hockey or a primary venue for some other sport (archery, perhaps, though the field orientation would be unnatural). The fair grounds could more than support the back-of-house facilities as well as a temporary venue (read: beach volleyball or velodrome).

Lowell is probably next among the satellite cities in terms of its ability to offer a "walkable" cluster of venues, however the proposed rowing venue really isn't that walkable from Tsongas. Similarly, the DCU center isn't close to Worcester's only other plausible Olympic venue site at Fitton.
 
tklalmighty, the original bid document with the list of university and college venues was the result of casual conversations with officials of said universities/colleges, and nothing substantive.

In February, Drew Faust, President of Harvard, said Harvard had not reviewed the bid documents before they were submitted to the USOC, and that Harvard would not do fundraising to defray the costs of the venues proposed to be located at Harvard. (The bid document suggested that Harvard would.) In the interview, she sounded pissed.

(From a map in the Crimson, the site for swimming and diving and water polo was across Western Ave from HBS, and next to Genzyme, and not at Beacon Yards. At least two of the sports originally proposed for Harvard are also competed in the ParaOlympics, which follows the Olympics. Archery is also a Para Olympic sport; perhaps that will be held at MIT rather than the stadium.)

Field hockey in the stadium would have required a new rug to be placed over the existing field turf. Whether that would entail first pulling the field turf, I don't know.
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With respect to Worcester, and facilities at Holy Cross, Richard Davey is an alumnus.
 
stellarfun said:
tklalmighty, the original bid document with the list of university and college venues was the result of casual conversations with officials of said universities/colleges, and nothing substantive.

In February, Drew Faust, President of Harvard, said Harvard had not reviewed the bid documents before they were submitted to the USOC, and that Harvard would not do fundraising to defray the costs of the venues proposed to be located at Harvard. (The bid document suggested that Harvard would.) In the interview, she sounded pissed.

(From a map in the Crimson, the site for swimming and diving and water polo was across Western Ave from HBS, and next to Genzyme, and not at Beacon Yards. At least two of the sports originally proposed for Harvard are also competed in the ParaOlympics, which follows the Olympics. Archery is also a Para Olympic sport; perhaps that will be held at MIT rather than the stadium.)

Field hockey in the stadium would have required a new rug to be placed over the existing field turf. Whether that would entail first pulling the field turf, I don't know.
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That, in my opinion, is a testament to the weakness of Mayor Walsh. If this were Chicago, San Francisco, or another city with a truly imperious mayor, (s)he would have been in Faust's office threatening to never approve another Allston building for the rest of her tenure if she didn't sign on. That's the sort of thing Daley did for Chicago 2016, and it would have worked here, too. Walsh hasn't been on the job long enough (and isn't taken seriously enough) for that kind of monkey business to work.

FWIW, if you want to make Faust a hero in this, fine. Just remember that she holds the keys to development of Beacon Park for anything, and she'll be the one to blame in twenty years when that site is blocks of overgrown weeds, just like everything else Harvard owns over there.
 
Harvard is basically a fourth branch of the Federal government. Harvard bought half of Alston in a covert operation and Menino was kept in the dark. Don't mess with Harvard.
 
equilibria, Beacon Yards won't be developed by Harvard before 2024. However, Harvard's approved IMP has new buildings going in on the Western Ave site for where the aquatics complex was put. That's the area where Beeline has photographed all the pipes coming out of the ground, which looks to be some sort of remediation.

If you do a streetview of Hague St., you can see the pipes.
 
stellarfun said:
equilibria, Beacon Yards won't be developed by Harvard before 2024. However, Harvard's approved IMP has new buildings going in on the Western Ave site for where the aquatics complex was put. That's the area where Beeline has photographed all the pipes coming out of the ground, which looks to be some sort of remediation.

If you do a streetview of Hague St., you can see the pipes.
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That wasn't my point. My point was that it's taken fifteen years for them to break ground on the SEAS building, and the SEAS building doesn't remotely cover the ground they own over there. They've got a whole campus "planned" for that property that they're building in the slowest freaking manner they can manage, despite having an infinite pit of money.

I'm not worried about Beacon Park being developed by 2024. I'm worried about 2034.
 
Stellarfun, good points about the origin of the documents. As adverse to the cost of temporary facilities as the powers that be may be, I do find it hard to believe they would build a temporary facility for Paralympic archery without it also hosting Olympic archery as well. If not Harvard Stadium, some existing facility will host the event.

I do find it unfortunate that Harvard would be so unwilling to participate (and I wonder whether not communicating with Faust from the get-go pushed her stance farther away). I tend to concur with Equilibria in that if I were in Walsh's shoes, I would be also be trying to put pressure to make this cooperation happen. Call it coercion or call it politics, but for this bid to be maximally successful, it has to be bought into by the powers that be.

Regarding field hockey, good point about the turf. My gut says that since it's artificial turf in question and not grass, the carpet could be adequately laid on top without destroying the FieldTurf, although I'm not sure either.

On a related note, I'm trying to ascertain the reason recent games have had both a primary and secondary venue for the event. I imagine the IHF had something to do with it, because I don't think the schedule requires it. (I look to the 2000 games schedule as proof of concept. Granted, there were only 10 sides in the women's side, but the scheduling would work out regardless.) If it is indeed unnecessary, using one venue instead of two could be another cost-effective proposal. I hesitate to say the IHF or IOC would necessarily agree though.
 
tklalmighty and equilibria, Neither Walsh nor the governor are in a position to pressure/coerce/strongarm Harvard or any other private institution as long as they declare that not a single cent of taxpayer money is going to pay for the games.

And as I mentioned before, the original bid document indicated Harvard would raise money to help defray some of the cost of the venues to be sited on its campus, when Harvard had made no such commitment. Faust subsequently pointedly said that Harvard would never do such a thing. So those in charge of the original bid, in effect, poisoned the well.

John Fish is the chair of the Board of Trustees at Boston College, so overtures to Boston College by Boston 2024 would probably receive a better reception at this point. (Fish himself is a graduate of Bowdoin.) Charlie Baker did graduate from Harvard, but has publicly said that his four years at Harvard was a time he'd rather forget. So Harvard will do no favors for Baker.
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At the 2012 Olympics, there were 12 teams on both the men's and women's side for field hockey. The men's and women's rounds were played on alternate days. A reason for a second venue may be if rain caused a delay/postponement of a match(es).
 
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