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player ready...Chicago made it into the final phase of the competition to host the 2016 Olympics, but it has some heavy barbells to hoist if it is to capture the gold.
The Second City ranks only third of the four finalists selected Wednesday in Athens by the International Olympic Committee’s executive committee. Technical evaluations by an IOC working group cited weak spots in Chicago’s transportation plan; construction budgets that appear to be too low; and financial guarantees that don’t meet IOC requirements.
Apparently United States Olympic Committee Chairman Peter Ueberroth was on target this spring when he said the Chicago bid is nowhere near being No. 1 in the race for the Summer Games.
Tokyo was judged to be the leader on technical issues, followed by Madrid. Rio de Janeiro followed Chicago. The IOC executive committee eliminated Prague; Doha, Qatar; and Baku, Azerbaijan.
Being No. 1 at this phase is hardly essential: Both London and Sochi, Russia, were No. 3 at this point in their separate competitions, and they went on to win the 2012 Summer Games and 2014 Winter Games, respectively.
Noting that the IOC deems all finalists to be capable of hosting an Olympics, Chicago 2016 spokesman Patrick Sandusky said there is information in the IOC working group’s report “that will be constructive in helping to shape our 500-page bid book.” The bid book is due in February and a host city will be selected in October 2009.
“We have a lot more information to tell them, to clarify, and we’ll give more background on why Chicago would be a fantastic host city,” Sandusky said in a phone interview from Athens, where Mayor Richard Daley and bid team leader Patrick Ryan attended the IOC selection announcement.
The appraisal of Chicago’s transportation concept ranked the city far below the infrastructure work that Tokyo and Madrid have completed and are planning to complete prior to the games.
The report cited inconsistencies in how much Chicago plans to invest on roadway and mass-transit projects.
The city’s application said Chicago plans to spend $27 billion on road and transit projects by 2016, the report noted. But it specifically listed only $2.7 billion in actual work planned.
Chicago also fell flat in describing how it would help Olympic spectators travel from venue to venue.
“The working group had difficulty in identifying the location of transport projects and therefore assessing the coherence between transport projects and the Olympic Games concept,” the report said.
It also noted that the sports venues along the lakefront were a long distance from rail stations.
Chicago has some significant work to do, local experts said.
“Chicago has a great skeleton of infrastructure. We just need to update those systems to provide a great transportation system for 2016,” said Michael McLaughlin, transportation director at the Metropolitan Planning Council.
He noted that the IOC report was written before the Chicago Transit Authority announced in late April that it will test bus rapid-transit lines on four city corridors. Those systems make use of bus-only lanes and specially timed lights.
The IOC noted that Rio has four new bus-rapid transit lines and it is planning to build Olympic lanes connecting Rio’s airport to four Olympic zones.
In the area of sports venues, the IOC report said, “construction budgets appear low and may warrant review.”
The issue is a sensitive one, both because of the experiences of other host cities and Chicago’s history of cost escalations on public works projects, such as Millennium Park, the Dan Ryan reconstruction and the O’Hare expansion.
“If you look at Vancouver 2010 and London 2012, there has been a steady stream of news about them being over budget, and this is a source of continuing concern for the IOC,” said Mike Moran, who was chief communications counselor for New York’s bid for 2012. “If this becomes commonplace … ultimately you will begin to eliminate cities that will even bid for the Olympics.”
Containing costs can be a difficult task for cities, said Allen Sanderson, a sports economist at the University of Chicago.
“Once one utters the word ‘billion’ every developer and union and friend of City Hall will start salivating, and cost containing … becomes impossible,” he said.
Chicago says it can build a main stadium in Washington Park for $385.9 million, a sum that is well-below the average cost for new stadiums of that size being built in the U.S. A more typical price tag approaches $1 billion.
The fact that Chicago’s stadium is mostly temporary could shave costs, “but that would need to be demonstrated,” said stadium expert Marc Ganis, president of Chicago-based Sportscorp Ltd. “I suspect they will be able to verify significant savings, but they may have to adjust upward at some point too.”
Chicagoans have no cause to fear cost escalations, said Sandusky, the bid team’s spokesman. “We just need to give the IOC more information on why our costs are so solid.”
The IOC also noted that the wording of Chicago’s financial guarantees does not fall in line with Olympic requirements.
Devising an adequate guarantee is always a challenge for U.S. bid cities because the federal government does not provide a guarantee, unlike the situation in many other countries.
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Chicago has come up with a $1.15 billion guarantee against operations, relying on a projected operating surplus, a city pledge and a state pledge that is not yet approved.
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Bid process timeline
Aug. 8-24 and Sept. 6-17: Each finalist sends an observer team to the 2008 Olympics and Paralympics in Beijing.
Feb. 12, 2009: Finalists submit the “bid book” to the International Olympic Committee. The book is a highly detailed candidate file that generally runs about 400 pages.
April-May 2009: The IOC sends an evaluation commission for three-day visits to each city. That commission prepares a report that does not contain an official ranking of the candidates.
Late spring 2009 (tentative): All candidate cities and IOC members invited to a meeting at IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. Because the IOC banned members from making inspection visits to candidate cities — except for business or personal matters — in the wake of the bid city vote-buying scandal that erupted in 1998, many cities have been frustrated in trying to overcome their unfamiliarity to many IOC members.
One month before final vote: Evaluation commission releases report.
Oct. 2, 2009: IOC members choose 2016 host city at meeting in Copenhagen.
– Philip Hersh
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