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Post-Olympic legacy: learning from former host cities

by Paul Swaddle
NBS Technical Author

In just over two years, the Games of the XXXth Olympiad will be drawing to a close in London. Much has already been written about new developments for the third Summer Olympics in the capital, but what lessons can be learned from previous hosts for what happens after the Games when we hand over the torch? The event presents major logistical challenges, yet is capable of generating unique enthusiasm in a global audience that presents lucrative commercial and tourism opportunities. Examples have shown it can transform urban planning, housing and transportation and play a role in the continued sustainability of the environment, local communities and education. Furthermore, the provision of world-class facilities can inspire a generation of new athletes and immediately improve the quality of sports coaching to support them. However, social and sporting benefits have to be measured against the bottom line financial cost. The London 2012 bid contained an ambitious plan for all of these issues, informed by the legacy of previous Olympics.

Maintaining Olympic venues

Trying to keep Olympics facilities in their original form is a challenge that has been rarely met by previous host nations. The scale and seating capacity required creates venues far larger than can normally be filled by domestic sporting calendars, especially in the field of athletics and other sports that might be popular during the Games, but are of limited interest beyond them. One of the key reasons why facilities are often left to deteriorate, unable to attract investment or alternative tenants, is because the venues were not designed with another use in mind and so they are difficult to adapt, not aided by the use of permanent construction methods.

Athens is one example of how large scale facilities proved unsustainable. Despite the success of the Games, the great majority of their venues, including their inventive open-air swimming pool, currently lie derelict and unused by the public. On top of the vast debt created by the Olympics themselves – including the expense of unprecedented levels of security, as the first Games after the attacks of September 11th 2001 – the ongoing maintenance of the facilities is costly. Similarly, the construction and repair costs of Montreal's Stade Olympique resulted in debt which was only cleared in 2006. It currently has no permanent tenant.

As national interest and local crowds can be difficult to sustain after the Games, the plan to retain an existing use of a facility is best combined with a plan to reduce the venue in scale and seating capacity. This encourages use by many organizations and federations within a sport, from local to international level, satisfying a range of criteria for all users.

Alternative occupancy

The example set by Atlanta was to design venues with their eventual adaptation in mind. As there was a smaller athletics stadium nearby, after 1996 the Centennial Olympic Stadium became Turner Field, home to the Atlanta Braves baseball team, a conversion organized and funded before the Olympics. Similarly, Georgia Tech University manages a number of the other facilities, including the aquatic centre for their own sports programmes, and converted the Olympic village into student housing. Despite increased security costs after a bomb attack and numerous transport problems, the Atlanta Olympics is one of the few to ever break even financially due to prominent sponsorship deals. London's plans are similar to Atlanta, desiring to redevelop an underused part of the city and spread the Olympics throughout the local area.

Perhaps the city that London most wishes to emulate in this respect is Barcelona. As well as the work required for the Olympic Games itself, Barcelona simultaneously invested in redevelopment of much of its coastline with new property, including hotels that encouraged record levels of tourism. The Olympics transformed and promoted the city as an attractive tourist destination to a much larger global audience than they had ever reached before. More so, London will be hoping to emulate the inspiration provided by the Games to a new generation of sporting stars in Spain, such as Rafael Nadal, supporting them with coaching and investment.

Commercial opportunities

Rather than maintaining sporting use, many venues raise investment by planning commercial redevelopment after the Olympics. Beijing's venues were architecturally innovative and photogenic, and were intended for subsequent commercial mixed-use but interest has proved difficult to attract. The Bird's Nest Stadium is eventually to become an entertainment complex, whilst the beautiful Water Cube is an aquatic sports training centre.

London's organizers have cited Sydney as the atmosphere they would most like to emulate, one of global friendship and excellence in sporting achievement, with a high domestic medal haul. However, their legacy has proved to be one of the most difficult to manage. The games were expensive and whilst rugby and other events have been held at Stadium Australia (now the ANZ Stadium), ten years on the conversion of the area into mixed-use residential and commercial ventures is still ongoing. Whilst more efficient than many stadiums in terms of embodied energy, Sydney's legacy is one of the largest Olympic venues ever, holding 114 000 at the closing ceremony, since reduced to 83 500. Post-Olympic levels of tourism have also been lower than predicted.

Existing locations

The London 2012 Olympic Delivery Authority made legacy one of their six priority 'themes', from earliest bid stage, alongside design and accessibility, employment and skills, equality and inclusion, health, safety and security, and sustainability. It has also tasked a not-for-profit organization called the Olympic Park Legacy Company with the planning and delivery of long-term redevelopment.

A key element of London's bid was their plan to use many existing locations for events, saving on the need for new venues. Los Angeles is the best example of an Olympics which changed the city in very few ways. Most of the venues were renovations of existing buildings, in fact only the velodrome and aquatic centre were newly built. It is therefore one of the most successful Olympics ever in terms of profit, thanks to sponsorship, high ticket sales and lucrative TV rights.

Using existing venues will also benefit from worldwide familiarity with those locations. The football finals will be held at Wembley Stadium with other large stadiums across the country hosting earlier rounds, the All England Club at Wimbledon will host tennis, and Lord's cricket ground will become the archery venue. Other existing buildings to be used include the O2 Arena (formerly the Millennium Dome) for basketball and gymnastics, and the ExCeL arena for boxing, table-tennis and others, with many events housed in temporary buildings. Sailing is to be held on the Isle of Portland in Dorset, which has raised the issue of managing the high predicted numbers of spectators travelling on existing roads and transport links outside Greater London. Most venues have been situated within the Olympic Park, as a subsequent benefit of a compact zone of activity is increased accessibility (through shorter distances between venues) for the Paralympic Games.

New venues

Within the Olympic Park, new venues are all designed to be flexible for future usage or to be easily deconstructed or downsized post-Games. In the main stadium, by removing much of the 10 000 tonnes of steel, the capacity will decrease from 80 000 to the 25 000 seats housed in the concrete lower tier. One intention is even to donate the removed seating to Rio de Janeiro, the host city for 2016. The stadium is built on an island platform made from recycled crushed concrete, surrounded by waterways that can be established now for integration into the proposed 45 hectares of wildlife habitat later. The island podium surrounding the stadium will house all the food outlets and kitchens to reduce risk of fire within the stadium and avoid services complicating deconstruction. It is proposed for toilet areas to be brought in as modular pods for the same reason.

The velopark, aquatics centre and hockey arena will be adapted to become permanent homes for those sports, but at appropriate scales for regular use by public and elite users. Other venues are potentially to be relocated around the UK, along with donating the sports equipment used for the Games to clubs and schools. A major legacy promise is to turn the Olympic village into around 3 000 apartments, with much allocated for affordable housing, as part of a larger redevelopment plan for Stratford.

So what about the cost? The predicted bill for the new venues, temporary buildings, infrastructural redevelopment of the Lower Lea Valley, additional security, policing costs and team funding is around £9.3 billion in total. This does not include the actual cost of staging the Games, approximately £2 billion, which is to be generated from government funding, the National Lottery, merchandising and sponsorship, ticket sales and broadcasting rights. In the wake of the financial crisis, it is likely that further contingency will be required.

The Olympics is about the power of sport to act as a common language between diverse populations and communities; inspiring more people, particularly children, to take up the sports they have seen. The event can regenerate neglected places and provide world class venues with long term value. Instead of costly stadiums made of permanent materials, London's legacy planning intends to provide only adaptive, reusable spaces using deconstructable, recyclable materials. With costs already higher than originally intended, the pressure will be on the organizers to maximize revenue and minimize further expense. However, London 2012 has the potential to be one of the most sustainable Olympics ever; not only in terms of the embodied energy and efficient planning of new works, but also by encouraging frequent, year-round use of the facilities by as many people as possible in decades to come. With legacy planning in mind from such an early stage, there should be no white elephants left behind when the Games move on to Rio.