Chicago Olympics organizers release more details on bid

Tuesday, January 23rd 2007, 5:51 pm

By: News On 6

CHICAGO (AP) _ As the city waits to learn whether it will get the chance to bid for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, organizers on Tuesday detailed their plans for some of the venues and how much they will cost.

At the center of Chicago's proposal to the U.S. Olympic Committee is a $366 million temporary stadium in a historic park on the city's South Side and a $1.1 billion lakefront athletes' village.

The price tag for the 80,000-seat stadium includes building an amphitheater that would replace it once the games end to host sporting and cultural events in Washington Park, a more than 300-acre park listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The size of the proposed stadium _ which would host opening and closing ceremonies plus track and field competitions _ was scaled down from 95,000 seats to cut down on costs.

Much of the money to build the stadium will come from corporate sponsorships of the games, said Chicago 2016 chairman Patrick Ryan.

``The stadium can and will be built and paid for if Chicago wins the right to host the games,'' Ryan said.

Ryan said close attention was paid to nailing down financial and construction details on the stadium, which he said is key to the viability of the city's bid.

San Francisco had to abandon its Olympic bid earlier in the process when its plans for a new bayfront stadium collapsed.

Los Angeles is the only other American city competing for the chance to bid for the 2016 Games.

Both cities have submitted detailed bid books to the USOC and officials there will travel to Los Angeles and Chicago before announcing their selection on April 14.

The American city then will be submitted to the International Olympic Committee, which will pick the host city in 2009. Other cities that have expressed interest in hosting are Madrid, New Delhi, Prague, Rio de Janeiro, Rome and Tokyo.

A USOC spokesman did not immediately return a call for comment Tuesday.

In Chicago's plan, the uncovered stadium, which looks like a shallow bowl, would be wrapped in a skin on which images could be projected at night or photos of past games could be displayed like a giant photo album.

Another centerpiece of Chicago's plan is an Olympic Village that will be built over truck parking lots near the city's convention center, south of downtown close to the lake. The development would be built over the lots on a new platform of land.

The village of eight- to 16-story condominium towers will create a new lakefront neighborhood and be built even if the city doesn't win the games, Ryan said.

Ryan said six developers already have expressed interest in paying to build the village, which the developers could then sell off after the games for use as condos, hotels and retail space.

The village would be near 16 venues, providing nearly 90 percent of the athletes with quick access to sporting competitions, Ryan said.