Only 18 days left before the deadline and yet proposal to build the Olympic Village for 2024 Olympics Games in Los Angeles still lacks details, according to the Associated Press as reported by The New York Times.
Los Angeles bids to host the 2024 Summer Olympics and its centerpiece is the $1 billion village that would house 17,000 athletes as well as tourists.
However, there are still a lot of questions and financial assumptions looming around the bid including tax incentives for developers and the cost for the government. For instance, the village is proposed to be built on a 125-acre land called Piggyback Yard currently being used as a rail yard in Lincoln Heights. However, Union Pacific Corp. owns the property and is reportedly an unwilling seller, according to Los Angeles Times.
The Village will include apartments which are sought to become affordable housing after the Games. But the plans to turn it to residential housing have not been defined yet in the bid.
While the development of the village will be through private funds mostly, details are still vague. The cost of acquiring the land and building the structure might actually exceed the projected costs, analysts said. In the first detailed plans for 2024 that was released earlier this week, there is $161 million projected budget surplus. Olympics is actually known for cost overruns, The New York Times said.
Due to lack of adequate information, analysts could not determine the financial risks of the bid, but recommended that the city treasury should be protected. Mayor Eric Garcetti and the organizers, on one hand, remain positive that the project will yield more revenue than losses.
Meanwhile, a City Council committee submitted on Friday a proposal which authorizes Garcetti to execute agreements related to the Olympics bid.
The U.S. Olympic Committee said the Olympics proposal is still a work in progress. The deadline for the preliminary U.S. bid is on Sept. 15.
