Beijing to break tradition of ‘white elephants’

FORMER Olympic host cities are littered with “white elephants” built in the construction frenzy that precedes the Games, but Beijing is confident its sparkling venues will not meet the same fate.

The challenge is illustrated by Athens, where nearly all the venues built for the 2004 Games now lie empty and continue to cost millions of Euros to maintain every year, casting a pall over the city’s Olympic legacy.

The need to build sustainable and usable venues has now become a key part of the Olympic bidding process, and International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said Beijing had succeeded.

He said many venues had been embedded into universities, ensuring their continued use in the future, sometimes on a daily basis.

“It means that no white elephant has been built,” he said. There were 31 venues at the Beijing Olympics, but only 12 were new. Eight were temporary and six were built inside universities.

Experts broadly agreed with Rogge, although they said it would be a challenge for the two flashiest and most expensive venues — the Bird’s Nest National Stadium and the National Aquatics Centre, known as the Water Cube.

“Despite the size of the venues, the population in Beijing is so big that there should be potential for full usage after an adjustment period,” said Susan Brownell, an expert on Chinese sport.

Liang Qindong, a director of the China office of EDAW, a design company that worked on some of the Beijing venues, agreed.

“I’m pretty sure they can be used well after the Games because of all the students,” he said.

“But I’m a bit concerned about how they are going to use the Bird’s Nest or the Water Cube, as it’s going to be very expensive operating and maintaining them.”

The Bird’s Nest would cost around seven million dollars annually to maintain, according to law firm Gide Loyrette Nouel, which was involved in the national stadium project.

Stephane Vernay, a partner at the firm, said the only way to make significant returns on the initial investment was to have a sports club residing permanently within the stadium.

“So far, none of the stadiums in the world has achieved profitability without a dedicated sports club in residence,” he said.

The Beijing Guo’an football club, a Chinese Super League team, said it was in discussions to do just that.

“We are negotiating actively, but no document has been signed,” said an official at the club.

Sun Weide, spokesman for the Beijing Olympics Organising Committee, said the stadium would be turned into a multifunctional venue, with sports competitions, exhibitions, concerts and conferences.

But some are unsure whether the Bird’s Nest, which is being downsized to around 80,000 seats from 91,000, will really make returns in a country where attending large-scale sporting events or concerts was not a habit. “Since it is the first time China has developed a sports facility project of such magnitude, it is not easy to make plans and determine whether the stadium will achieve profitability after the Games,” Vernay said.

As for the Water Cube, it was to be turned into a water entertainment park, Sun said, and some areas would also be kept for competitions.

The athletics and media villages are to be converted into residential areas, and organisers say most of the units have already been sold.

The only venue with a real question mark over its future is the rowing-canoeing park, located around an hour away from Beijing in Shunyi, far away from the main population centre.

But overall the experts agree the legacy is positive. “While Beijing suffered from a lack of appropriate facilities before being awarded the Games, the ratio between population and sports facilities will probably become one of the most favourable in the world,” Vernay said.