***WARNING LONG POST AHEAD*****
Did anyone see the article today in the Republic about Sun Devil Stadium? Its in desperate need of repairs, its 50 years old, by the time Phoenix had a realistic chance at the Olympics it would be over 60. They could do repairs on it or....hello new Olympic stadium. With UofP being available, ASU could temporarily play there while you demolish SDS (and trust me I love that place and would be sad to see it go) and put in an Olympic stadium that holds 80-90K then can be paired down to 60-70K for ASU. You can't use UofP like has been mentioned because there's no room for a track, but in a new stadium in Tempe you could do it.
I disagree with this notion that Phoenix wouldn't tax itself for something like the Olympics. Phoenix is still a conservative town and while it likely won't vote to tax itself over things that are viewed as kinda leftist or whatever I think they would for sports arenas/infrastructure (the past 40 years attest to this). This Valley is sports bug nutty and would jump at the chance I think to go for an Olympic bid.
As far as when like I said before I think Africa has the inside track on 2020, 2024 would be the very earliest and by that point it would've been 28 years since the US had the games.
Glynnjamin, the problem with your idea about spreading things out across the state is the IOC doesn't really love that. A big draw for London was that the average Olympian traveling from their village to the event would only have a 20 minute commute. Obviously there's no way we'd be able to match that, but for the most part we'd want to try to limit commutes to 40 minutes maximum.
The exception would be Soccer which has so many teams every host city outsources some of the earlier matches (Atlanta had games in Florida & Alabama). Luckily Arizona Stadium in Tucson & the Walkup Skydome in Flagstaff (which would have to have field turf put in) would work ideally. Again I don't think you can count on Chase Field for many events as its the D'backs season and they're not going to want to risk destroying their field. Incidentally, Im sure the D'backs would love the spillover boost in attendance they'd see from all the foreign visitors going to their first major league baseball game.
As far as an Olympic village goes I hadn't thought of the Railyards, thats interesting because it would feed more directly into downtown and that would certainly be a good thing. It wouldn't have super direct access to LRT but I guess the short 2 or 3 block walk up to the 12th St stations wouldn't be too bad. And if you had a stop at Central & Lincoln on a Southbound line that could serve the Village as well. Additionally, perhaps a temporary stop along the Commuter/HSR could be made for the Olympic Village.
Atlanta used housing from their Olympic village after the game as Residential housing for GaTech which would be a model I'd hope PHX would follow, the Olympic Village could become the campus of a new university.
Breaking the topic down into two categories here's what we'd need/the best fits in my estimation:
Infrastructure:
- Cross state High Speed Rail: You'd want to use the opportunity to build rail from Nogales to Williams (with then likely a shuttle taking people to the Canyon) and then onto Las Vegas. Also a Phx-LA connection to help get people in/out of the city.
- Commuter rail: this just piggy backs on the HSR system really in the "X" shape we saw that MAG put out a while back
- Rehabbed/revitalized Phx Union Station w/ either a people mover or shuttle to a...
- New Phx Central Terminal, a real terminal not just a bus stop
- Vastly expanded LRT:
- to Downtown Glendale & Westgate via Glendale ave. LRT down Thomas Rd West connecting to Criket.
- North up 51st Ave going by Maryvale stadium, through Downtown Glendale and onto ASU West.
- Expand the East leg to Stapley & Main in Mesa (w/ shuttles taking people to HoHoKam park).
- LRT or modern streetcar connecting Papago Park/DBG/Zoo/Phx Muni, across McDowell and up to Old Town S'Dale and S'Dale stadium
- LRT south on Central Ave to Ed Pastor Transit Center (especially if the Village is on the riverbanks)
- Make sure Terminal 4 expansion and Terminal 2 rebuild are finished in time to handle increased loads
- Increase capacity at Phx-Mesa Gateway airport as a reliever airport
- Replace Convention Center South building w/ a new matching building, likely wouldn't need to span the entire block maybe something slightly larger than the West building
- Increase (double?) Downtown Phx hotel space
- New Central Ave Bridge (explained later)
As far as the Olympic Village goes I really can't decide if I think a River Centric spot or something on the rail yards would be better. I like the Railyards because it feeds into downtown, but would UP go for that? The River area has a lot more open space and would likely lead to everyone's dream of the Salt Flowing, so thats a wonderful long term effect. I think my gut would lean towards a Salt River Centric site, take a look at this aerial from Expo 67 in Montreal to get an idea:
While Combusean is right that there's a big suitable parcel over by 19th Ave, I think its a beat too off the beaten path/not along potential LRT to be suitable. It would be better suited as a place displaced businesses from an Olympic Village around Central Ave could move to. Here's where I'd envision the Village going (with the river flowing all the way from Tempe to 19th Ave):
Thats a pretty huge grouping of parcels totaling approx. 281 acres according to Google Maps (NW quadrant: 99 acres, NE: 15 acres, SW: 122 acres, SE: 45 acres). I don't think just the Village proper would take up nearly all of that but due to the airport and its location you'd likely want to cap all the buildings at 80-100 feet so it would only be moderately dense at best.
Also that area could house on the South Bank a new Spring Training facility (2 of out of the 3: Cardinals/Astros/Twins) and its fields (or those could go over by 19th ave as well) which would of course be used as an Olympic venue then afterwards be re-purposed for Spring Training.
Before you fill in the river though I think you'd want to demolish the Central Ave bridge and build a new one. One that carries both automobiles, pedestrians, bikes and a LRT over the river. Great cities have great bridges and that could be Phoenix's lone opportunity to build a great bridge.
OK onto the
Venues:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Combusean
How many people can the Convention Center conceivably fit for an athletic event?
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I couldn't find this info anywhere. I even called and asked how many they had for that Celebrity Game they had there but the only info they had was 125K for the entire game session, not how many actually sat and watched the Celeb Game. My guess would be about 5K though from what it looked like on TV.
Here's how Id preliminarily break down events between venues:
- Sun Devil/Olympic Stadium: Track & Field/Opening & Closing ceremonies
- USAC: Basketball & Handball
- Jobing.com: Gymnastics
- Veterans Memorial Coliseum: Swimming/Diving, etc
- UofP Stadium: Soccer
- Wells Fargo Arena: Boxing, Judo, Taekwondo
- Scottsdale Stadium: Field Hockey
- HoHoKam Park: Soccer
- Maryvale Stadium: Archery
- Phoenix Muni: Shooting (Ben Avery is good too but SO far away, trying to keep things central & transit proximate)
- (New) Rio Salado Spring Training stadium: Tennis
- Dodge Theater: Table Tennis
- Phoenix Convention Center: Fencing, weightlifting
- Mona Plummer Aquatics Center: Water Polo
- Westworld: Equestrian
- Salt River: Canoeing/rowing, potentially sailing (if enough room)
- Lake Pleasant: Sailing (if Salt River is too small)
- TPC Scottsdale: Golf (if added)
- (New) Small Glendale "Main Street"/Westgate arena: Volleyball
- (New) Velodrome @ Olympic Village: Cycling
- (New) Beach Volleyball @ Olympic village: Beach Volleyball
- (New) MLS Stadium in Mesa or Olympic Village: Soccer
- Arizona Stadium (Tucson): Soccer
- Walkup Skydome (Flagstaff): Soccer
For the odd sort of multi area events like Modern Pentathlon and such you would try to have them in and around the Olympic Village/Park as much as possible as I know the IOC likes things huddled together for obvious reasons.
Something like the Velodrome could be designed in mind to convert to a large Student Rec Center/Arena for the new College that the Olympic Village would become.
If Phoenix did decide to aggressively pursue a MLS team theres some ideal space along Main St & Dobson in Mesa where a 20K soccer specific stadium could go, it would have to be an indoor stadium & that spot provides enough room for a roll out field. Or depending on room and what Phx wanted to do perhaps that facility could go as part of the Olympic Village area. A further benefit to this would be that since MLS is a summer sport the College could use it for football way down the line, graduations, big events, etc.
HoHoKam Park is one of the larger Cactus League facilities and could be expanded a bit for soccer matches that are expected to be less well attended.
Divvying up the events like I've done keeps most everything in just a few zones: Central Phx (Downtown, Coliseum, Olympic Villaga @ Rio Salado), Glendale Westgate & ASU Tempe. You've got a few events in places like Mesa, Scottsdale & perhaps Peoria (Lake Pleasant) to get further buy in from those cities.
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Originally Posted by Leo the Dog
I'd be in favor of it if they would bulldoze down Garfield and take over the whole sq. mile and build an urban village with thousands of units to house the athletes during the games and new residents afterwards.
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Thats a terrible idea. Have you learned nothing from Phoenix tearing down entire historic neighborhoods in the past? Sure parts of Garfield are crappy right now, but once Downtown finally turns around and becomes the 'it' place to be, Garfield will be turn around as well and be a greater feeder neighborhood for Downtown. Your proposal is reminiscent of all the awful 'urban revitalization' plans of the mid century that gave us places like Cabrini Green.