The Boston 2024 Partnership has until December to formally put together its argument to the U.S. Olympic Committee that Boston should host the 2024 Summer Olympics.But the Partnership and its representatives have already begun making the case to the public. Witness the busy day they had today, first at the State House talking up the Olympics to Boston’s legislative delegation, and then reconvening at the partnership’s headquarters on the South Boston waterfront to chat with the media.As part of his presentation to reporters, Partnership president Dan O’Connell offered a long list of details about where the partnership would prefer to build certain venues, and where certain activities would take place during the games. There wasn’t much in the way of surprises in terms of the locations that would be used. But this was the first time that O’Connell talked about many of them in a detailed way with a group of reporters. The goal would be to build a Summer Games that is largely reliant on public transit for spectators and private shuttle buses for athletes, with no new parking spaces at the venues. This, of course, is aimed at the widespread concern that three weeks of Olympics events could paralyze the city’s major roadways and side streets. O’Connell offered a projected budget of $4.5 billion — a price tag that would be covered through a combination of ticket sales, broadcast rights payments and sponsorships. That figure doesn’t include a tally of at least $5 billion in public infrastructure investments — such as extra tracks at an expanded South Station and a new West Station in Allston — that the Partnership’s backers say are on track to happen anyway. The proposed venues would be reflected in the bid book that Boston would submit to the U.S. Olympic Committee by December. The USOC would then make a decision on which city in the U.S. would bid for the games in January — Boston and Los Angeles are potential front-runners in a race with San Francisco and Washington. The International Olympic Committee would make a final decision on the 2024 location in 2017. The vault would be held at: Widett Circle: The partnership is eyeing Widett Circle, a roughly 100-acre area, for the Olympic stadium. It’s a place that’s now largely used to store towed cars and salt piles, hard by the Southeast Expressway. O’Connell says the Partnership is talking about construction of a 60,000-seat stadium for ceremonies as well as track and field competitions that would be temporary in nature, to be disassembled after the Games. The site, sandwiched between the Andrew and Broadway T stops on the Red Line, then would be primed for commercial redevelopment. The Dorchester Avenue stretch along the Fort Point Channel could be turned into a grand “Olympic boulevard” that could allow spectators to walk from South Station to the stadium (assuming the USPS finally agrees to leave its Fort Point station for new digs in Southie). more
