2010-12-21 10:28

VANCOUVER- Vancouver experienced a world-class party in February when it hosted the 21st Winter Olympic Games. It is only now, however, with the final bills coming in, that residents of the Canadian city are finding how much the privilege cost them.

On Dec 17, the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) released its final budget, saying it spent 1.88 billion Canadian dollars to stage the Games. With the organizers declaring that 91 percent of revenues came from corporate sources, additional money from taxpayers also helped ensure the Games didn't run into the red.

In 2007, the intended budget was declared at 1.61 billion Canadian dollars.

Utilization of Olympic Venues

With the Games awarded to Vancouver in 2003, it marked the first time for a Canadian city to host the Winter Olympiad since Calgary in 1988. The winning pitch by VANOC was that it would stage the Olympics using a mix of existing buildings and a few new structures.

This was largely adhered to as only two new structures, as well as the sliding center at Whistler, the ski resort two hour northeast of Vancouver that hosted Nordic, Alpine and sliding events, were built new for the Games.

For the citizens of Vancouver, the Games' legacy will undoubtedly be the expansion of the local rapid transit system, a major reconstruction of the Sea-to-Sky Highway, the road that connects the city to Whistler, and the building of the Vancouver Convention Center addition on the downtown waterfront.

The two billion Canadian dollar  "Canada Line"  proved an instant success as it expanded the legacy of the city's hosting of Expo'86 that originally brought rapid transit to Vancouver. The new addition connects the downtown area with the neighboring city of Richmond, as well as the airport.

With Whistler an important part of the Games, an initial plan to build a new road to the popular ski resort was scrapped. Instead, the scenic, but notoriously dangerous Sea-to-Sky Highway was improved upon at a cost of about 600 million Canadian dollars.

In the downtown area, the Vancouver Convention Center addition was built at a cost of 883 million Canadian dollars and served as the media center for the Games. Today, the hi-tech, enviro-friendly building with nearly 31,000 square meters of space nicely complements neighboring Canada Place for convention facility offerings.

Of the buildings used for the Games, Vancouver's Olympic legacy is two venues that have been converted into community centers for public use and the reconstruction of the Thunderbird Arena at the University of British Columbia campus.

In addition, the ice rinks at both Killarney and Trout Lake community centers were rebuilt for the Games as practice venues and are once again being enjoyed by the public.

Undoubtedly the most successful venue, financially, has been the Richmond Olympic Oval. The neighboring city to Vancouver hosted some of the speed skating events during the Games.

The 178 million Canadian dollar venue was largely realized by selling off a piece of land adjacent to the building to Aspac for a reported 141 million Canadian dollars. The privately-held development company, owned by the Kwok brothers who run Hong Kong mega-developer Sun Hung Kai Properties, is building a mixed-used residential project that will take more than a decade to create.

Post-Games, the Oval has been transformed into a multi-sport and wellness facility with a massive open-space hardwood floor for basketball and other sports, squash courts, hockey rinks, meeting rooms and an indoor simulated rowing tank for cold-weather training, among others.

In Vancouver proper, the OIympic Center, host venue for the curling and the only other new facility built for the Games, is a work in progress. Built for 39.05 million Canadian dollars, it is currently being transformed into a community center that will feature a swimming pool, ice rink and library. Its opening will replace aging facilities in the Queen Elizabeth Park area.

The Pacific Coliseum and Rogers Arena, existing facilities that among them hosted the figure skating, speed skating and ice hockey events, have reverted back to their previous usage, while B.C. Place, site of the opening and closing ceremonies and the nightly medal presentations, is currently undergoing a major transformation.

In May, the air-supported fabric roof was ripped off the downtown 55,000-seat, 27-year-old stadium to start construction of a permanent retractable roof, something that will be welcomed in this rain-soaked city.

The $458 million taxpayer-financed roof is not an Olympic legacy, but the building did receive $105 million to renovate the structure for the Games.

At Cypress Mountain, a provincial park above West Vancouver, the legacies of the skiing, aerials and snowboarding events held there are few. The half-pipe used to stage the snowboarding has been demolished, while the freestyle, mogul and aerial courses built have yet to be used since the Games.

Whistler has fared better. While the downhill course at Whistler Creekside has been  "retired", the $105 million Whistler Sliding Center last month hosted the first World Cup sliding event of the season. So far, it is the only Olympic sport to return to the area since the Games.

The ski resort has also been left with the spectacular Whistler Olympic Park at Callaghan Valley. The facility hosted the cross-country skiing, biathlon and ski jumping and provides an excellent training ground for Canadian athletes. So far, no elite competitions have been planned for the site.

International Tourism

Two government-sponsored studies released on Dec 17 said the Olympics and Paralympics provided a huge boost to the Canadia economy, generating as much as 2.5 billion Canadian dollars in gross domestic product for the British Columbia economy alone.

The reports by accounting firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers covering the period 2003-2009, starting from the time when Vancouver was awarded the Games, and another covering the first three months of 2010, the period of the Games through the Paralympics in March, said 45,500 jobs were created in the Canada's western-most province. In addition, incremental tourism increased by 463 million Canadian dollars.

While the Winter Games provided the world with a window into scenic British Columbia, it also provided a much-need influx of tourists.    Earlier this month, the Conference Board of Canada forecast Vancouver to have 4.8 percent increase in overnight visitors to the city in 2010.

However, the Ottawa think-tank also reported, despite the domestic market remaining relatively strong, the severe losses experienced in international visitor in 2009 from the economic downturn, was not expected to recover to pre-recession levels before 2012.

With the ruling B.C. Liberal government spending 38 million Canadian dollars on an international tourism promotion during the Games proclaiming  "You go to be here" , so far the  "Olympic bounce"  has failed to materialize, according to the B.C. New Democratic Party.

The opposition party claimed last month that tourism visits to the province were at a level lower than in 2007 and 2008. In the summer, overnight travel to Canada the numbers had been down from nine to 12 percent, the biggest decline coming from the Asian markets, it said.

Vancouver Olympic Village

A recent criticism of the Games was the lack of bilingualism used at the opening ceremony, according to Canada' s language commissioner, further fueling the age-old divide among the country' s French and English-speaking communities. Of greater concern in Vancouver is the fate of the Olympic Village.

In November, Millennium Southeast False Creek Properties, the developer of the Olympic Village, one of two facilities where the athletes were housed, was placed into receivership by the City of Vancouver, unable to make its loan payments.

The city is still owed 740 million Canadian dollars for the loans and is stuck with 454 unsold units, half of them on the market for more than one million Canadian dollars. A total of 223 pre-sale units were sold before the Games, while only 36 have been purchased since May. Some disgruntled early buyers have now asked for a refund.

The luxury village also features 252 units of non-market housing. Half are to be rented to essential city staff such as teachers, firefighters, police, nurses and teachers, while the rest is to go to subsidized housing. To date, the completed units sit empty.

With the host province British Columbia declaring it spent 925 million Canadian dollars on the Games and March Paralympics and the City of Vancouver adding in 554 million Canadian dollars, the real bill will be known when the federal government announces what it contributed.

The federal government spending estimates are around $1.2 billion, but it has yet to release a final accounting. On Dec 14, it did, however, announce that 854 million Canadian dollars was spent on security for the Games. In 2003, the original projection for security was 175 million Canadian dollars.