Boston’s blueprint for bringing the 2024 Olympic summer games to the city would require taxpayer money to upgrade transportation facilities, but not for construction of athletic venues, Mayor Martin Walsh said today.
Members of the U.S. Olympic Committee arrived in Boston this morning to discuss their selection of the city as the U.S.’s best bet to win the 2024 Olympic Games.
Meeting Thursday in Denver, the group chose Boston over finalists Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., as the U.S. nominee to the International Olympic Committee, which will make the final decision in 2017. Boston will compete against an array of international finalists, which could include Berlin, Paris, Rome, Budapest and Istanbul.
"It’s going to accelerate all the conversation that we need to have about the future," Walsh said at a press conference held Friday morning at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center. He said the community planning process will be the most "open, transparent and inclusive in Olympic history."
Details of Boston’s sealed bid have not been released to the public. Suffolk Construction magnate John Fish, head of the Boston 2024 committee that has been pushing the controversial proposal to bring the games to Boston, insisted that the games would not leave a trail of "white elephants" in its wake. Fish said if Boston is chosen, three-quarters of the events would be held at existing facilities at local colleges and universities.
The pro-Olympics group’s current plan calls for a temporary Olympic stadium at Widett Circle in South Boston and housing of athletes in an Olympic village at the former Bayside Expo property in Columbia Point.
No Boston Olympics, the grassroots group formed to oppose Boston’s bid, said it will hold an organizing meeting at 6 p.m. on Jan. 14 at a location to be announced in Boston or Cambridge.
The group says the Olympics would place a huge financial burden on Massachusetts taxpayers – the average cost of summer games is $15 billion – while generating little or no permanent economic benefit and primarily enriching private interests. The group said the massive planning effort required to put together a detailed bid for the games will distract elected officials from more worthy issues.
"It threatens to divert resources and attention away from these challenges – all for a chance to host an event that economists say does not leave local economies better off," the group said in a statement.
Boston 2024 said it can raise $4.5 billion from private sponsors to augment an estimated $5 billion in publicly-funded infrastructure costs.
The first phase of Boston’s bid was funded primarily by a group of wealthy corporate donors, including $650,000 from executives at private equity giant Bain Capital, the Boston Globe reported Thursday.
Also this morning, Walsh announced a schedule of eight community meetings to receive public comment on the bid, the first of which will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 27 at Suffolk Law School, 120 Tremont St.
The schedule for the rest of the city’s community meetings is as follows:
- Feb. 24, 6:30 p.m. – Condon School Cafeteria, 200 D St., South Boston
- March 31, 6:30 p.m. – Harvard Business School, (building to be determined)
- April 12, 6:30 p.m. – Roxbury Community College, 1234 Columbus Ave., Roxbury
- May 19, 6:30 p.m. – Cleveland Community Center, 11 Charles St., Dorchester
- June 30, 6:30 p.m. – English High School, 144 McBride St., Jamaica Plain
- July 28, 6:30 p.m. – Mildred School, 5 Mildred Ave., Boston
- Aug. 25, 6:30 p.m. – Orenberger School, 175 West Boundary Road, W. Roxbury
- Sept. 29, 6:30 p.m. – East Boston High School, 86 White St., East Boston
Boston 2024 will hold its first citizens advisory group meeting at 6 p.m. on Jan. 21 at the BCEC.
