All ready for 3,000 athletes to call home for two weeks
Sam Cooper
Province
A happy John Furlong gets the key to the Olympic Village from smiling Mayor Gregor Robertson. Photograph by: Wayne Leidenfrost, The Province
VANOC boss John Furlong looked relieved as he accepted the giant key to Vancouver’s Olympic Village from Mayor Gregor Robertson on Wednesday.
At the official handover ceremony in the cavernous Salt Building — with construction crews still working outside to finish the $1-billion-plus, eight-block development — Robertson quipped about delays, saying, “I know you’ve been waiting for this — welcome to your new digs John.”
Furlong called the facility a “platinum-level performer” and waxed poetic in a speech before a throng of media and officials, saying “the atmosphere of these Games will be lifted so much by this village.
“To get up and look across False Creek to the skyline and the mountains will propel athletes to the performance of their careers,” Furlong said.
Later, Furlong said Vancouver’s Olympic Village is head and shoulders above any other in the world.
He noted that other countries are already studying the facility.
In February and March 2010, more than 3,000 of the world’s top winter athletes and team officials will make the village their home, with access to extensive amenities and services. The Salt Building, a refurbished barn-like heritage structure with exposed wooden beams and a towering ceiling, is where athletes will meet and mingle.
Following the Games, unsold Millennium Water condo units valued at $600,000-plus each will be put on sale as part of marketer Bob Rennie’s revised strategy.
As developer Millennium ran into financing problems in the middle of 2008’s world financial crisis, the city was forced to take over the project and has had difficulty selling pricey units in a real-estate downturn.
Robertson pushed the “exceptional value” of the project’s green features, predicting the village will propel Vancouver to the goal of being the world’s leading “green city.”
“It’s hard to imagine we are standing on what was once the industrial heartland of the city, and now it’s our vision of a more sustainable future,” he said.
The mixed-use, mixed-income neighbourhood will have 1,100 residential units, incorporating sustainable infrastructure, high-performance green buildings and easy transit access, the city says.
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