Why Olympic Venues Are So Hard To Reuse…

Why Olympic venues are so hard to reuse…

References:

“Why no one wants to host the Olympics” Youtube Video by Search Party

SSgt Rachel Maxwell

Ibex73

Clifflandis

Waka77

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Andrew Hecker

*drowned* at English Wikipedia

Images:

“Olympic Stadium (Egenhao)(28996061023).jpg” by Leandro Neumann Ciuffo from Rio de Janiero, Brazil is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

“Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (29297859221).jpg” by Anthony Kernich from Adelaide, Australia is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

“Athens, Greece (7651367324).jpg” by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center from Greenbelt, MD, USA is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

[SeanA]

I like what LA is doing where they’ll be using a lot of temporary or existing venues

[insertnamehere]

Sydney 2000 never had this problem, because they're still being used 24 years later

[rdh]

Atlanta seemed to get it right in '96 by building a main Olympic venue that could be adapted (and shrunk) to be the new Braves baseball stadium--which they sorely needed to update Fulton Co. The Braves were there for around 20 years--maybe not the ~30-plus years of life you'd ideally like to see in a major venue but still a great run for an adaptive re-use. I think the Braves moved also in part due to location issues although the venue was probably showing its age. Still a rare practical solution to a big wasteful problem. Would love to see a video dedicated to successful adaptive re-uses. Thanks!

[josephdhippolito]

As someone who has lived in metropolitan Los Angeles for his entire life, I can tell you that USC football, and UCLA football used to draw capacity crowds to the Coliseum. That doesn’t happen anymore because tickets have become prohibitively expensive for the average fan, and because neither USC nor UCLA football have quite the cachet that they used to even 20 years ago.

Regarding Olympic facilities, I think the best solution would be to build temporary facilities for the minor sports, where possible. These can be dismantled afterward so they don’t remain eyesores.

[DaveTexas]

Yeah, it’s like hosting a World’s Fair. You have to invest SO MUCH to build the infrastructure, the transportation, the venues, and related housing/hotels in order to have a chance at profitability…and then it’s over and you’ve got a bunch of stuff that will never be used again.

That leaves you with two real options: build everything cheaply for the purpose of having it be temporary, or build everything in a way that can be used into the future. The latter only works, however, under very limited circumstances. If a city is in need of, say, a major new football stadium, hosting an Olympic Games would be a great reason to build one. Building the Olympics "village" attached to a major university campus could allow for new venues for all the various college sports programs.

But otherwise, it just doesn’t make sense to build a dozen major sports venues in one area that will see only two weeks’ worth of use.

I’d hate to see the Olympic Games come to an end, though. The solution I see is for the IOC to work with a select number of cities around the world and then help to build permanent venues in those cities. These would be cities that already have excellent public transportation options and plenty of airport and hotel capacity for visitors. For example, pick four cities for each set of games (summer and winter). Pick one city in North America, one city in Europe, one city in Asia, and one city in South America. Build all the facilities necessary for the games — and for use by other sporting teams/events. The IOC would help with the costs of building and maintaining the facilities. Then just have the games rotate through each of the four cities. Maybe only two or three cities would be feasible. Maybe holding the games twice as often would make more financial sense, so it becomes a better money-generating event to the host cities. The selection of a new city for the games every four years isn’t working, though, so that model needs to change.

[dindog]

LA 1984 they didn't build anything new. the Coliseum was already there and everything else was pretty much done at UCLA facilities

[epurser]

The field hockey stadium (Herndon Stadium) in Atlanta was around before the Olympics and continued to be used until Morris Brown College had financial issues. It opened in 1948.
Of the stadiums built for The Olympics, the only one to my knowledge that did not have much of a life before or after was the tennis stadium at Stone Mountain.

[kentfrederick]

If I recall correctly, the swimming venue in Atlanta became the pool for Georgia Tech.

Olympic Stadium in Atlanta was built to be reconfigured for baseball. After the Braves left for Cobb County, Turner Field became the football field for Georgia State.

[MatthiaGryffine]

It's such a shame that this situation always happens

[geowilliams]

For the most part, Atlanta DID reuse their facilities, as they were designed with reuse in mind. 28 years later, their Olympic stadium is now Georgia State University's football field, after 20 plus years as Turner Field. The Olympic Village is now dorm space for GSU and Georgia Tech. The Aquatics center now belongs to GT. And Atlanta remains one of the few host cities to actually make a small profit from their Games.

[awill]

LA 2028 is gonna be cool! Sofi Stadium will host 8 World Cup games in 2026, the Super Bowl in 2027 and The Olympics in 2028 that's an insane run of events back to back to back.

[nicegan]

The solution is for the world to adopt Australian football and cricket! Simply remove the running track.

This is probably why the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Australia is probably the most successful former Olympic stadium in the world. It was already over 100 years old when it hosted the Olympics in 1956 and its been used pretty much every weekend since.

[normanwhite]

Here in Atlanta the Olympic stadium became Turner Field. Grant Field (Georgia Tech) and Sanford Stadium (UGA) were used for soccer. The Georgia Dome was replaced by Mercedes Benz Stadium. The one that puzzles me is the tennis venue. It was a solid facility and Atlanta has one of the largest collection of amateur tennis players in the U.S., yet they never used the facility.

[bluerisk]

Munich build next to everything from scratch but had also a firm idea how the area will be used afterwards and is a full success story.

[aidanwotherspoon]

I’ve come to understand that a lot of the most successful Olympic cities used already existing venues.

[basprad]

After the 1996 Olympics the Track and Field stadium was reused for the Atlanta Braves Baseball, which I thought was a great idea. Too bad the stadium for field hockey just sits rotting away. I know the velodrome and the tennis venues are both gone at Stone Mountain Park, sad.

[ignaciofuentes]

The Olympics should rotate between the handful of countries that can really afford it and have existing venues. Like America, France, China etc.

[PjRjHj]

The Melbourne Cricket Ground is by far the most successful Olympic Stadium as most Australian states can justify oval stadium of appropriate capacity to host Athletics because of the simular dimensions required for Australian Football and Cricket.
Accor Stadium (Stadium Australia) hasnt been quite as successful as the MCG, but is far from a white elephant. Sydney resides in a Rugby League leaning state and is also known for having Australia's most fickle sporting fans. Yet i'd put its issue down to its specific design and less sophisticated post games conversion compared to City of Manchester Stadium or the movable seating of Stade de France.

Unfortunately Brisbane's proposed main stadium has become highly politicised. It reeks of back room discussion between Queensland politicians and powerful Rugby League figures who'd happily see Brisbane left with a $1.6 billion 14000 seat (legacy mode) bare bones athletics stadium white elephant in nondescript suburbia, as long as public funding is directed to their rectangular stadium (which can't host athletics) and away from their direct winter competitor Australian Football. Regardless of the Gabba needing replacing in 2030's

[flamingfrancis]

The timing of this article is apparently driven by what we are seeing in Paris at the moment where existing infrastructure and attractions are being used for the various sports. To my knowledge the French have built only the 400million Euros swimming complex for the event.We are also seeing a few vastly outlying places being used for some other sports...Tahiti, Nice, Marseille and Lille for example.
The 2032 Brisbane Olympics should take note and consider using the Brisbane River in a similar light to what the Seine is being used.

[alexhajnal]

They could always just make the venues smaller. Another thing that would help is restricting new construction to cases where there are absolutely no existing alternatives that could be adapted.