Chicago 2016 bid less than 1 week away

Chicago 2016 expects greater scrutiny of Olympic Village proposal
Lack of financial guarantee may hurt, but leaders say they’ll avoid London, Vancouver woes
By Laurie Cohen and Kathy Bergen Tribune reporters
February 8, 2009

With the deadline for Chicago’s final Olympic bid less than a week away, a piece of property on the South Side is casting a long shadow over the city’s plans.

The property, now the site of a foundering hospital, is where officials want developers to build a privately financed, $1.1 billion Olympic Village to house athletes for the Summer 2016 Games.

But the global economic crisis is expected to make international Olympic officials question whether Chicago can deliver the massive project. And taxpayers are likely to wonder whether they will end up paying the bill.

These concerns have intensified in the past few weeks because of news out of Vancouver and London, the cities that will host the next winter and summer Olympics. As credit has dried up, both have been forced to bail out high-priced construction projects that were supposed to have been built with private money.

Now, Olympics officials “are going to want more assurances—you can take that to the bank,” predicted A.D. Frazier, the chief operating officer for the 1996 Atlanta Summer Games.

Patrick Ryan, Mayor Richard Daley‘s hand-picked leader of the city’s bid team, said he fully expects “there will be greater scrutiny of everything related to the financial plans” by the International Olympic Committee.

“We think we’ll be able to show the private sector will be able to handle it,” Ryan said.Chicago and the other finalists—Tokyo, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro—must submit their bids to the International Olympic Committee by Thursday. They will be released to the public the next day, and the winner will be chosen in October.

Chicago’s rivals will get blanket financial guarantees from their governments, covering everything from the budgets to run the Games to the outlays required to build athletes’ villages and sports venues.

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