the 83,100-seat, $209 million olympic stadium, site of athletics, … · 2014. 2. 4. · rosser...

32 ATHLETIC BUSINESS July 1996

Jan. 3, 1996: TheOlympics will feature afull international lineupfor the first time, asNorth Korea accepts itsinvitation to the Games,bringing the totalnumber of competingnations to 197.

Jan. 31: Coca-Cola beginsnational and internationalsearch for its 2,500“Share the Spirit”torchbearers.

Jan. 10: ACOG strikes a dealwith the family of MartinLuther King Jr. to use hisimage on medallions andother memorabilia.

Feb. 6: Celebrityphotographer AnnieLeibovitz named asofficial U.S. Olympicteam photographerfollowing a year ofnegotiations.

Feb. 7: Following the confiscationof counterfeit Olympic Gamesmerchandise at Atlanta’s SuperShow and an apparel trade showin Las Vegas, USOC and ACOGannounce a new plan toeliminate the problem.

Feb. 15: ACOG names5,500 “CommunityHero” torchbearersselected bycommunity judgingpanels.

February: ACOG’s financialreport for 1995 is released,showing that the committeehas $1.51 billion in financialcommitments — 11 percentshort of the amount neededto pay for the Games.

THE XXVIth OLYMPIAD

The 83,100-seat, $209 million Olympic Stadium,site of athletics, as well as the opening andclosing ceremonies, will be downsized to 49,831seats after the Games when it will become thenew home of the Atlanta Braves.

The 83,100-seat, $209 million Olympic Stadium,site of athletics, as well as the opening andclosing ceremonies, will be downsized to 49,831seats after the Games when it will become thenew home of the Atlanta Braves.

Everywhereyou look there issomething new.First and fore-most are the newand renovatedsports facilitiesdotting the city, aswell as neighboringcommunities. Thenthere are the newhighways, parks, hotels,offices, retail outlets and over-all citywide beautification. Ever sinceAtlanta learned on Sept. 18, 1990, that itwould host the XXVIth Olympic Games(held for 17 days from July 19 to Aug. 4),the city has experienced a buildingfrenzy unlike anything it has seenbefore — or likely will ever see again.

Although the massive amount of con-struction has brought some growingpains — heavy traffic congestion forone — as well as its share of dissenters,the legacy of sports facilities theOlympics will leave the Atlanta area isunparalleled in the United States. UnlikeLos Angeles in 1984, which used exist-ing venues for all events except shoot-ing, Atlanta didn’t have enough existingvenues to host all 26 Olympic sports (31disciplines).

“There weren’tenough profes-sional, institu-

tional andmunicipal

facilities where wecould put all 31 of

these fields of playand all of their var-

ied configurations inexisting facilities,” says

Bill Johnstone, an execu-tive vice president with Lehrer

McGovern Bovis Inc., who is on assign-ment to the Atlanta Committee for theOlympic Games. “We just weren’t as wellendowed as southern California.”

Lehrer McGovern Bovis, along withsister firm McDevitt Street Bovis Inc.,and the firms of Charles F. McAfeeArchitects and MHR International —collectively known as the Program Ser-vices Group — were selected in March1992 by ACOG to provide managementservices for the Olympic constructionprogram.

“Those four entities came together,brought all of their strength and exper-tise, and our mission then became toorganize and manage the constructionprogram within ACOG,” says John-stone, who serves as director of project

July 1996 ATHLETIC BUSINESS 33

Feb. 20: IOC officialsaffirm that Taiwaneseofficials have not beeninvited to the Games,which would likely leadto a Chinese boycott.

Feb. 27: ACOG, USOC andEMI/Latin Records announcethat the first-ever OlympicGames’ Latin album, VocesUnidas, will be released inconnection with the 1996Games.

Mar. 6: Avoiding a possibleChinese boycott over Taiwan,Olympic organizers announcethat no political leaders willbe formally invited to theGames.

Mar. 14: Olympicorganizers accuse stadiumdesigners of suing them inretaliation for demandingthat the designers pay $3million in repairs to thesteel infrastructure.

Mar. 21:Olympic theme,“Summonthe Heroes,”is released.

March: Tickets to Coca-Cola’s Olympic City go onsale. Also, ministers in theOlympic ring ask ACOG for$2 million to offsetprojected losses in churchcontributions during thegames.

Mar. 19: Two 10,000-poundsteel beams designed tosupport a temporary roof beingconstructed over the Olympicswimming and diving complexcollapse on the Georgia Techcampus and fall 130 feet. Noone is injured.

Mar. 23: 135,000tickets to 105previously sold-outevents go on sale;5,845 sold in twohours; hundreds ofhotel rooms begin toshow up as available inwhat was previouslycalled a completelybooked market.

Mar. 13: The OlympicStadium Design Teamsues ACOG for $4 millionbecause of frequentdesign changes causing47,600 hours of unpaidovertime.

Mar. 26: City ofAtlanta announcesthat ACOG is 11days late with a$1.9 millionpayment for cityservices.

Mar. 29: The IOCannounces thatOlympic athletes inAtlanta must agree totake any disputesabout issues such asdrug-test results to aspecial court ofarbitration instead ofcivil court.

Mar. 30:Olympic flame litby high priestessat Temple ofHera in Olympia,Greece.

March: Bill toprevent rent gougingby landlords dies inGeorgia Legislature.

After

the Olympics and

Paralympics have come

and gone, Atlanta and its

surrounding communities will

be left with a vast legacy

of world-class sports

facilities.

OpportunitiesB

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NEW PERMANENT FACILITIES

Olympic StadiumProject team: Heery International Inc.;

Rosser International; Williams, Russell &Johnson; and Ellerbe Becket Inc.

Site of athletics, as well as the openingand closing ceremonies, the 83,100-seatstadium will be downsized to 49,831 seatsafter the Games when it will become thenew home of the Atlanta Braves in time forthe 1997 season. The stadium will replacethe 52,563-seat Atlanta-Fulton County Sta-dium, which will be utilized as the Olympicbaseball venue and then torn down afterthe Games. The $209 million price tagincludes the new stadium, conversion to abaseball stadium and destruction of theold stadium. The Atlanta Braves addedanother $21 million worth of improve-ments, bringing the total stadium price tagto $230 million.

The facility’s track will be relocated toClark Atlanta University.

Aquatic Center(Georgia Institute of Technology)

Project team: Stanley Love-Stanley P.C.;Smallwood Reynolds, Stewart, Stewart andAssociates Inc.; Counsilman-Hunsaker &Associates (natatorium consultants).

Site of the swimming, synchronized swim-ming, diving, water polo and modern pen-tathlon events, this $14.4 million complexincludes separate competition and divingpools, as well as a $6.2 million, temporary,5,000-seat water polo facility. The maincomplex includes 2,000 permanent and13,000 temporary seats. After the Games,ACOG will give the facility to Georgia Tech,which plans to enclose it and convert it intoan intercollegiate aquatic center.

Hockey Center (Clark AtlantaUniversity, Morris Brown College)

Project team: Turner Associates andHNTB Sports Architecture Group.

One of ACOG’s largest venue invest-ments, the $31 million, two-field, artificialturf field hockey complex includes a 5,000-seat stadium at Clark Atlanta Universityand a 15,000-seat stadium across thestreet at Morris Brown College. After theGames, Morris Brown will use the new sta-dium for football, while Clark Atlanta willuse its stadium for football and track andfield events.

Tennis Center(Stone Mountain Park)

Project team: R.L. Brown and Associates,Nichols Carter Grant Architects, RosserInternational, Tunnel-Spangler & Associ-ates, and Browning Day Mullins Dierdorf(tennis design consultants).

Located 16 miles from the Olympic Cen-ter at Stone Mountain Park, this $18.9 mil-lion, 20-court tennis facility is set againstthe backdrop of the world’s largestexposed granite monolith. The facilityincludes a Centre Court stadium with12,000 seats, 8,000 of which will be per-manent; two grandstand courts with 5,000permanent and 3,000 temporary seats; 13competition courts with a total of 6,550seats; and four covered practice courts.

After the Games, ACOG will give the facil-ity to Stone Mountain Park, a state-ownedfacility, for public use. The venue will alsobe used for NCAA and Atlanta Lawn TennisAssociation tournaments.

Preliminary Basketball Venue(Morehouse College)

Project architect: Moody/Nolan Ltd.Site of basketball’s preliminary rounds,

the $9 million, three-level, 6,000-seatarena will be given to Morehouse after the

Games. An existing gymnasium was alsoupgraded into a warm-up facility.

Georgia International Horse Park(Conyers, Ga.)

Project team: Lord Aeck & Sargent, DelonHampton & Associates, Tunnell-Spangler &Associates, Duckett & Associates, andInternational Equestrian Design.

Located at the 1,139-acre Georgia Inter-national Horse Park, this $24.7 million per-manent facility, 33 miles from downtownAtlanta, will host equestrian and mountainbiking events, as well as the equestrianand cross-country competition of the mod-ern pentathlon. The center includes sta-bles, dressage and jumping areas, a trackcourse, trails and a steeplechase oval,which will be given to the Horse Park afterthe Games. The main arena will feature31,000 seats, 8,000 of which are perma-nent.

Rowing and Canoe/Kayak Venue(Lake Lanier)

Project team: Armour, Cape & Pond; B&EJackson.

This $16 million, permanent rowing facil-ity, located 55 miles northwest of Atlanta,is the site of flat-water canoeing/kayakingand rowing, and will be given to the city ofGainesville and Hall County after theGames to be used for competitions and asa public rowing center. The site will have1,500 permanent and 18,500 temporaryseats, a permanent cabling system and fin-ish tower, two permanent boat houses andpermanent storage facilities. The site willalso include a temporary day village for ath-letes.

The biggest challenge of the venue wassecuring a temporary, 14,000-seat plat-form that could be easily and safely placedwithin the water. The temporary seatingplatform was built in lieu of locating ter-raced seating on a heavily forested hillside.

Wolf Creek Shooting Complex(Fulton County)

Project team: Harrington George & Dunn,P.C., Lowe Engineers, CTA Architects/Engi-neers, Roy Ashley and Associates, andDuckett & Associates.

Site of shooting events and modern pen-tathlon shooting events, this $16.7 millionsite is located at the Wolf Creek Trap &Skeet Range, a world-class facility 21 milesfrom downtown Atlanta. After the Games,Fulton County will operate the site for world-class shooting competitions and as part ofits public recreational facilities.

NEW TEMPORARY FACILITIESCycling Velodrome(Stone Mountain Park)

Project team: Bishop Planning Consul-tants Inc., M. Paul Friedberg & Partners,Harrington George & Dunn, and SchurmanArchitects (design consultants).

The $10.9 million velodrome (which alsoincludes the cost of the archery facilities,below) located with the Tennis Center atStone Mountain Park, consists of a 250-meter wooden-surface track with 6,000seats.

Archery Facilities(Stone Mountain Park)

Project team: Bishop Planning Consul-tants Inc.; M. Paul Friedberg & Partners;Harrington George & Dunn.

Also located at Stone Mountain Park, thearchery center includes a four-lane archer’scompetition range, a 22-lane practice rangeand 5,000 temporary seats.

Wassaw Sound Yachting Facility(Savannah, Ga.)

Yachting will be staged in the AtlanticOcean off the coast of Savannah. The tem-porary, $10.8 million day marina is 250miles from Atlanta.

RENOVATED/ADAPTEDFACILITIES

Adaptations paid for by ACOG or the facili-ties themselves were made to the followingexisting facilities:

Georgia DomeHost to the men’s and women’s basket-

ball finals, as well as gymnastics and teamhandball events, the 72,000-seat dome,which opened in 1992, is the largest cable-supported stadium in the world.

Georgia World Congress CenterSite of fencing (regular competition and

modern pentathlon event), judo, table ten-nis, handball, wrestling and weightlifting, the2.5 million-square-foot building is the secondlargest convention center in the nation.

The Omni ColiseumHome of the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks bas-

ketball team, the 16,400-seat arena willserve as the volleyball venue.

Alexander Memorial Coliseum(Georgia Institute of Technology)

Currently Georgia Tech’s basketballarena, the 10,000-seat facility, which willhost boxing events, upgraded its floor,seating, suites, concessions, air condition-ing and access for the disabled for theOlympics.

Georgia State University GymThe gymnasium at Georgia State Univer-

sity, which received $2.6 million worth ofimprovements, will host badminton events.

Ocoee Whitewater CenterLocated 130 miles from Atlanta on the

Ocoee River near Ducktown, Tenn., this1,850-foot course, site of slalom canoeand kayak events, churns along at about 7m.p.h. It’s classified as a Class III-IV site interms of difficulty, on a scale of I to VI.

Atlanta Beach (Clayton County)This venue, a park bought by Clayton

County, is the beach volleyball venue andis located near Jonesboro, 20 miles southof downtown. The facility features threeman-made lakes, large beach areas and a8,000-seat beach volleyball stadium, whichwill remain intact after the Games.

University of Georgia Coliseum(University of Georgia at Athens)

Site of preliminary volleyball and rhythmicgymnastics, this facility is located 65 milesfrom Atlanta.

Sanford Stadium(University of Georgia at Athens)

This 86,000-seat stadium, one of thelargest in the country, is located 65 milesfrom Atlanta. It will host the soccer semifi-nals and finals. First-round soccer matcheswill be held at Legion Field in Birmingham,Ala., Miami’s Orange Bowl, Orlando’s Cit-rus Bowl and at Robert F. Kennedy Sta-dium in Washington, D.C.

Golden Park Softball Complex(Columbus, Ga.)

This $5.1 million, 2,500-seat softballfacility, site of women’s fast-pitch softball,was built by the city of Columbus and is105 miles from Atlanta. The facility willseat 8,753 spectators during the Olympics.

Atlanta’s Olympic Legacy

manage-ment in the con-

struction department.“Ideally, any committee would like to

be in a position where there are enoughexisting facilities that you could placeevery one of those 31 sports in a facility.In that case, all you’d have to do isadapt that facility to the requirementsof the Games, and your budget wouldbe relatively small. But when we addedit up, there just weren’t the facilities outthere,” says Johnstone. “We ended up10 venues short.”

PSG determined $400 million wasneeded to build the 10 facilities. Addedto that was an additional $100 millionfor the adaptation of existing facilitiesand for temporary and portable facili-ties, such as bleachers, tents, trailers,toilets, fencing, site-generated powerand temporary air conditioning.

Johnstone says PSG’s next challengewas to develop individual programsvenue by venue, sport by sport.

“What you don’t get when youbecome the host community — and thiswas the toughest thing that hit me whenI came here — is a box labeled with aparticular sport, and in that box iseverything you need to know about thatsport’s facility requirements,” he says.

“All they give you is the rule book,and they tell you who the president ofthe international federation is and youbasically negotiate what kind of a facil-ity you’re going to give them. And thenyou have to negotiate with the post-Games owner to leave behind a lastinglegacy.”

Underlying every decision PSG madewas the goal of finding post-Games own-

ers who wanted — and could afford tooperate — the facilities the Olympicswould leave behind.

“We applied that rationale to everyone of the 10 facilities that we werebuilding,” says Johnstone. “We alwaysmade sure that we were building perma-nent for what the post-Games ownerwanted, and then facilitated our addi-tional requirements through temporaryand portable additions.”

That philosophy has prevailed,and the colleges and universitieslocated in or near downtown Atlantahave certainly reaped the largest

rewards, with more than $116 millionspent on the construction and renova-tion of sports facilities and residencehalls.

The school with the largest legacy isthe Georgia Institute of Technology(Georgia Tech), which will host aquat-ics and boxing events, and is the site ofthe main Olympic Village. In addition toa new aquatic center (see “Atlanta’sOlympic Legacy,” page 34), the schoolreceived improvements to AlexanderMemorial Coliseum (site of boxing), aswell as 2,700 new dorm rooms. NearbyGeorgia State University also received2,000 new dorm rooms, which arelocated on the Georgia Tech campus.

In addition, two of Georgia Tech’sgymnasiums will be used as practicevenues, the existing outdoor pool willbe used as a warmup pool, Griffin Trackwill be used as a warmup and practicetraining area for athletics, and the base-ball stadium and tennis center will beused for warmups. A new outdoor plazawith a wading pool, amphitheater andbell tower will be a permanent additionto the campus.

One reason Georgia Tech may havebeen successful in attracting the Gamesto its campus is the active role theschool took in helping put together amultimedia presentation, shown to IOC

The aquat-ics center, site of the

swimming, synchronizedswimming, diving, water

polo and modern pen-tathlon events, includes

this 15,000-seatcompetition pool, as well

as a diving pool and atemporary, 5,000-seat

water polo facility.

Give and Take

Although the new aquatics center at Georgia Tech sits ready and wait-

ing, the process of building the facility at the university was definitely one

of give and take.

“Aquatics was one of those 10 sports we didn’t have an existing home

for, and we said if we’re going to build an aquatics facility, let’s make

sure there’s a post-Games owner who wants it and can maintain it so it

lives on for the people of Georgia and the regional southeast,” says Bill

Johnstone, director of project management in the ACOG construction

department and an executive vice president with Lehrer McGovern Bovis

Inc., one of four firms making up ACOG’s Program Service

s Group.

PSG put out inquiries and the Board of Regents of the Higher Educa-

tion System of Georgia, which includes the University of Georgia, Georgia

Tech and Georgia State, expressed interest in a high-caliber aquatics

center.

“They said, ‘We’ll give you the land at Georgia Tech if you put your

development dollars into it and then leave us the facility,’ ” says John-

stone. “We said you couldn’t ask for a better post-Games owner than

that, so we slid our Olympic requirements across the table at them think-

ing what a win-win situation this was — and they slid it right back.”

ACOG’s requirements called for three pools — a competition lap pool,

a diving pool and a water polo pool. The university only wanted two

pools, saying it didn’t have the funds to maintain a separate water polo

pool. In addition, the school only wanted 2,000 permanent seats, a far

cry from the 15,000 seats ACOG needed.

In the end, they compromised.

“We put in 13,000 temporary seats, temporary trailers for back-of-

house and concessions and got a temporary pool for water polo,” John-

stone says. “That wasn’t quite what we had in mind, but on the other

hand, we didn’t want to leave behind a white elephant.”—S.S.


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“What you don’t get when

you become the host

community is a box labeled

with a particular sport, and

in that box is everything

you need to know about

that sport’s facility

requirements.”

officials inTokyo, detailingthe transportation, medical facilities,entertainment, training facilities, hous-ing and dining available in Atlanta. Geor-gia Tech’s location also helped.

“I think the location of the universitydowntown and close to the venues wasvery important,” says Bill Miller, Geor-gia Tech’s director of Olympic planning.“We’re just ideally located for theOlympic Village.”

Some 15,000 individuals (9,000 ath-letes and 6,000 support personnel)

will be housed on the campus atboth new and existing dorms,

and at fraternities and sorori-ties. The school will alsohouse 6,000 athletes duringthe Paralympic Games,which follow the Olym-pics.

“We built a total of4,700 dorm rooms andathletes will stay two to aroom, so two-thirds of theathletes will live in brandnew facilities,” says Miller.

Although all students liv-ing in dorms on campus dur-

ing the summer will have tomove off campus during the

Olympics, and all staff, studentsand faculty had to be investigated

and credentialed, Miller feels the legacythe Olympics is providing is well worththe temporary inconvenience.

“Up until this point, we could houseonly 35 percent of our students andnow we’re up to around 50 percent,and that’s going to change the charac-ter of the campus quite a lot,” saysMiller. “One of the things we’re lookingat is to turn the housing into learningcenters. They’re all wired into a net-work, so students can turn on theircomputer monitors and ‘attend’ classes

right from their room.”Miller says that after the Games, the

aquatic center will be used for teaching,wellness activities and recreationalswimming. (The facility was largelyfunded by ACOG, but Georgia Tech con-tributed some money for items like amovable floor to make the main poolmore usable as a teaching facility). Chil-dren living in nearby public housing willalso be able to use the pool through avariety of sponsorship programs. Oncefunding is available, the school plans toenclose the facility, making it eligible tohost NCAA competitions.

Miller says although a project of thismagnitude has its ups and down, overallthe school was able to work well withACOG.


ad

Circle 25 on Reply Card

SnorkelWhat?

When it comes to venue construction, you try toprepare for every contingency, but the firm responsible

for construction at the Georgia International Horse Parkin Conyers, Ga., was boondoggled by snorkelwort, a stateand federally protected plant.Snorkelwort, which grows in depressions of granite where

water collects following heavy rain, was recently found at thesite by Georgia’s Corps of Engineers. Plants resemble a vine-like water lily, containing small brown, capsule-shaped fruits.

“We’ve faced some extraordinary conditions before, butworking around snorkelwort was definitely a first,” saysMickey Hernandez of Bovis Inc. in New York City, part of amultifirm management team responsible for Olympicvenue construction. Hernandez is project manager of thevenue, site of equestrian, mountain biking and modernpentathlon events.

“We had to arrange our entire building planaround a fenced-off area to protect snorkelwort,”

says Hernandez. “It even diverted the path ofthe original mountain biking course.”

— S.S.

“We always made sure that

we were building

permanent for what the

post-Games owner wanted,

and then facilitated our

additional requirements

through temporary and

portable additions.”

“We have different purposes, andsome things get crossed because we’retrying to maintain an academic atmos-phere here at the same time they’re try-ing to get ready for this huge event.We’ve had to say no a number of times,but that was kind of expected,” he says.“Overall, it has really been a great expe-rience.”

Although Georgia State University’snew dorms are more than a mile fromtheir campus, they are the school’s first.Georgia State also received financialassistance from ACOG to improve itsgymnasium, site of Olympic badmintonevents.

Three of Atlanta’s historically blackcolleges — Morehouse College, ClarkAtlanta University and Morris BrownCollege — are also beneficiaries of theOlympic legacy. A new arena, which willbe used for preliminary basketballrounds, was constructed at Morehouse,

while an existing gymnasium wasupgraded into a warm-up facility.Besides the actual 6,000-seat arena seat-ing bowl, the $9 million, 100,000-square-foot arena includes four large lockerrooms, weight-lifting and fitness rooms,coach and players’ lounges, medicalfacilities, ticketing, concessions andstorage areas.

Both Morris Brown and Clark Atlantareceived stadiums for field hockey,although after the Olympics, bothschools will convert the stadiums to

football use. At Morris Brown, the exist-ing 15,000-seat Herndon Stadium wasextensively renovated, while at ClarkAtlanta, a new 5,000-seat stadium wasbuilt. As an added bonus, the high-techtrack from the Olympic Stadium will berelocated to Clark Atlanta and will sur-round the stadium field. The schoolalso received funding to develop a soft-ball field and eight new tennis courts —improvements that, according to Direc-tor of Athletics Dr. Richard Cosby,greatly enhanced the facilities the

July 1996 ATHLETIC BUSINESS 39

ad


A new 5,000-seat stadium atClark Atlanta University will

be used as a field hockeyvenue. After the Games, it will

be converted to a footballstadium and surrounded bythe track from the Olympic

Stadium.

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school has for its athletic program.“We were very pleased to have the

opportunity to participate in theOlympics and get facilities of the magni-tude we got,” says Cosby. “We wouldhave liked to have more, but there wasjust so much appropriated for the bud-get and we had to be realistic in ourthinking.”

The process involved in coordinatingthe many different types of construc-tion was a complex one.

“We set up an organization that basi-cally mirrored what our main missionwas and that was project management,”says Johnstone. “Then to make surethose individuals had all the supportthey needed, we set up three depart-ments whose only function was to sup-port project management.”

Those departments include projectcontrols, which consists of scheduling,estimating and cost reporting; tech ser-vices, which handles program definitionand control, quality control, safety anddealing with regulatory and permit

agencies; and minority and female par-ticipation, an important criteria in everycontract awarded.

“That’s another legacy we’re proudof,” says Johnstone. “We achieved 43percent minority participation from ourdesigners and about 35 percent fromour contractors. We set that as a highcriteria in selection.”

The 31 sports disciplines were thendivided into five teams — “I call themcombat teams,” says Johnstone,“assisted by support departments.”Team A handled the Olympic Stadiumand baseball; Team B, the equestrian,shooting and rowing/canoeing venues;Team C, the aquatics, tennis, archery,cycling and badminton venues; andTeam D, the field hockey, basketballpreliminaries and yachting venues.Team E was responsible for adapting allthe existing venues, as well as for the

procurement and design managementof temporary and portable facilities.

Although ACOG had its share of con-struction-related problems — mostnotably last year’s collapse of a lighttower at Olympic Stadium that killed anironworker, plus the collapse in mid-March of two steel beams supportingthe temporary roof over the AquaticCenter — Johnstone feels ACOG is a tar-get because of the magnitude of theOlympics.


Did YouKnow?

Facts and figures aboutthe XXVIth Olympiad.

• The Olympic Village at Georgia Tech isthe largest village ever, housing10,500 athletes, and the first with airconditioning.

• Approximately 150,000 temporaryseats have been shipped in from Aus-tralia, Ireland, Canada and Spain.

• More than 2,000 portable toilets willbe located among the venues.

• Some 1.2 million square feet of opera-tions and hospitality tent space willaccommodate visitors, dignitaries andathletes.

• Games staff will include 88,171 peo-ple — 1,400 ACOG employees,42,500 volunteers, 38,937 contrac-tors and 5,334 hourly/temporary/loaned staff.

• A total of 181 venues will be used,including competition sites, non-com-petition venues, command centers,medical facilities, training and warm-up sites, warehouses and hospitalitycenters.

• 1.4 million visitors are expected inAtlanta during the Games.

• Atlanta temperatures for the Games:an average high of 87.3 degrees F.,an average low of 68.3 degrees F.

• Funding includes $1.7 billion raisedthrough the sale of broadcast rights,sponsorships and licensing rights,tickets, merchandising and other pro-grams.

• Nearly 40 percent more women will becompeting than in 1992 — 3,779women expected in 1996 vs. 2,708 in1992.

• There will be 600 VIPs, with more than4,500 security personnel on hand toprotect them.

(The above information is courtesy ofACOG and Bovis Inc.).

Georgia Tech’s 10,000-seat Alexander MemorialColiseum (top), site of boxing events, was extensively remod-eled for the Games. After the Games, the venue will continue

to host Georgia Tech basketball games. The 6,000-seat arenaat Morehouse College (bottom), site of basketball’s prelimi-

nary rounds, will be given to the college after the Games.

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“If we weren’t the Olympics, nobodywould be interested,” he says. “If westub our toe on anything, everybodyjumps on it because it’s news and peo-ple want to read about it — and thatkind of gets you down from time totime. But there’s going to be a timewhen everybody is all of a sudden goingto want to celebrate it, so we have tolook forward to that and not get bur-rowed under.”

While Johnstone’s favorite facility isthe Olympic Stadium — “It’s the center-piece of our program and it’s justbreathtaking” — he regrets that its

legacy will not be left to the track andfield community. (As soon as theOlympics and Paralympics are com-pleted, a massive effort will be under-way to convert the facility to a49,831-seat stadium for the AtlantaBraves in time for the 1997 season.) Healso cites the equestrian, shooting, row-ing/canoeing and tennis venues as note-worthy legacies.

“It’s the first time in 50 years that allthree equestrian events are on one site,and that’s another breathtaking facil-ity,” he says. “The shooting facility is ofinternational-competition quality andit’s not in military hands — FultonCounty will operate it. It’s a legacythat’s just fantastic. Rowing and canoe-ing at Lake Lanier is a permanent facilitywith a lake configuration that narrowsdown to a river and a protected gorgeon a north-northeast heading, which isperfect for rowers. The boathouses areanother beautiful legacy. Tennis is atremendously popular sport in theAtlanta area and the tennis venue —with 16 courts surrounding a centercourt that has 8,000 permanent seats —will be operated by the Stone MountainAuthority, which is a state park, sothat’s in very good hands.”

Although ACOG tried hard to find apermanent home for a velodrome, John-stone says nobody wanted it becausethe popularity of velodrome cycling isdying as mountain biking and roadcycling become more popular.

“We didn’t want to leave behind whiteelephants that nobody wanted,” he says.“Unfortunately, we weren’t able to makeevery one of them work. There wasalways a reality we had to apply to it.”

Johnstone says the 1984 Olympics inLos Angeles were a model for ACOG tofollow.

“We looked very hard at Los Angelesand we spent a lot of time observingwhat Barcelona did, but we kind of mod-eled ourselves economically after theL.A. games,” he says. “We didn’t want toleave behind a debt to the people. Weare under budget and on schedule, andwe spent a lot of time on cost control tomake sure we lived up to our obligationto the people and the state.” ■

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The Stone Mountain tennisvenue includes a Centre

Court stadium with 12,000seats, 8,000 of which will

be permanent; twograndstand courts with

5,000 permanent and3,000 temporary seats;

and 13 competition courtswith a total of 6,550 seats.

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the 83,100-seat, $209 million olympic stadium, site of athletics, … · 2014. 2. 4. · rosser...

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