Top News

Plans Out For Olympic Village, Sporting Venues

Proposal Includes 37-Acre Village Near McCormick Place

Get breaking news alerts

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Officials have released plans for a $1 billion Chicago Olympic village near Lake Michigan if the city wins the bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympic games.

The plan for sporting venues and athlete housing spread from Lincoln Park on the north to McCormick Place on the south. The plan went to the U.S. Olympic Committee on Friday.

Private donations would pay for an Olympic Village on 37 acres just south of McCormick Place on what is now a parking area for large trucks. After the games, the village could be developed for mixed-income housing.

Mayor Richard M. Daley earlier this week announced plans for a 95,000-seat stadium for opening and closing ceremonies that would be built in Washington Park on the South Side. The stadium would also be the venue for track and field events.

"Affordable housing after we built Olympic village, that would be wonderful for the city," said Daley.

If Chicago were chosen to host the games in 2016, it would be one of the most compact Olympics in modern history. Almost every athlete would be within 15 minutes of their venue.

After the Olympics, the city would convert the stadium to a 10,000-seat venue. It would host other sporting and cultural events, including local, national, and international track and field meets.

In promoting the stadium, Mayor Daley said: "The beauty of the park itself – looking back at the panorama of the downtown area – that's the other issue too. It also would help the South Side tremendously."

Olympic officials said the construction of the stadium would also be privately financed.

The full list of proposed competition sites includes:

•   Lincoln Park: sailing at Montrose Harbor; tennis at Waveland; whitewater slalom course near Fullerton.
•   North Avenue Beach: beach volleyball.
•   United Center: basketball, artistic gymnastics.
•   University of Illinois Chicago: boxing, swimming, diving.
•   Grant Park: archery, triathlon.
•   Soldier Field: soccer.
•   Northerly Island: cycling.
•   McCormick Place: indoor volleyball, weightlifting, judo, wrestling, rhythmic gymnastics, fencing, table tennis, modern pentathlon.
•   Washington Park: track and field, opening and closing ceremonies.
•   Palos and Sag Valley forest preserve: equestrian events, mountain biking.
•   Joliet: shooting.

"Sporting events, concerts – it's just to improve the South Side," said Charlie Johnson, a South Side area resident.

Those who play in Washington Park, see things differently.

"It's like saying, 'okay, we want this because we want to put our city more on the map, moreso than we care about the little kids playing baseball,'" said Richard Theriot, a young South Side resident.

"You take an open space, basically putting in a facility there—that's all you're doing, open space. There's a lot of open space, otherwise nothing ever changes," said Daley.

Daley says if the Olympics were held in Chicago in 2016, a world class city would have even greater prominence. The event could bring an estimated $6.5 billion to the economy.

Chicago , San Francisco and Los Angeles are the three U.S. cities in the running to host the 2016 Olympics.

The final decision will come in March 2007. The U.S. Olympic Committee might end up not submitting any American city for consideration, but feedback has been that now could be the time for a U.S. host. The country last hosted a Summer Games in 1996 in Atlanta.

As for the other cities, if San Francisco wins the bid, city officials said they plan to build a new stadium and housing for athletes by the city's waterfront that would later be used as apartments.

Los Angeles, on the other hand, still has stadiums and water parks left over from the 1932 and 1984 Olympics to meet most of the Olympic Games' needs, officials there said.

After the U.S. Olympic Committee decides, the next step in the process is consideration by the International Olympic Committee.

(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)