The United States Olympic Committee is visiting Tampa next week to assess the city’s chances of becoming the U.S. candidate for the 2012 Summer Games. Florida 2012 released a three-volume bid proposal Tuesday.
Spectators at the Tampa Games would pay between $25 and $65 to see 65 per cent of the events, and tickets for the opening and closing ceremonies would sell from $505 to $1,382. They would visit 33 venues, an Olympic village and stadium replacing decaying public housing and stay in 225,000 hotel rooms lining the Interstate 4 corridor to Orlando.
Construction costs are pegged at $1.2 billion and Florida 2012 expects to contribute $426 million and would look to private developers and organizations to help with the remaining $774 million.
The stadium would cost an estimated $270 million. Florida 2012 proposes to pay $205 million and get the rest from the University of South Florida or another entity that would use the facility after the Games.
According to the report, there are plans to tear down two deteriorating public housing complexes in Tampa and replace them with a 100,300-seat stadium, Olympic Village and housing for dislocated tenants that will “further the cause of social justice”, said the report.
A letter included in the document from the Florida Department of Community Affairs, says that the risk of a hurricane during the June 15-July 1 dates of the Games is portrayed as minimal.
The corridor stretching from St. Petersburg east to Orlando would have 225,000 hotel rooms, which organizers say is more than the total of past Olympic cities of Sydney, Atlanta and Barcelona combined. There are now about 158,000 rooms.
Plans are for a transportation system to move up to 100,000 people an hour.
Florida 2012 proposes building 400-metre track and field training tracks in addition to existing asphalt tracks at three high schools and the University of Tampa.
