[combusean]

Originally Posted by Tempe_Duck

Why shoot so low? How about the Summer Olympics them selves. Hold it in the spring or fall. Hold the Sailing events in San Diego, rapid events on the Colorado river, near Grand Canyon. It could be an entire state event.

BTW, I believe we held part of the WBC last time it held.

I've been thinking a lot of how Phoenix could host the Summer Olympics someday.

It'd be the culmination of a lot of events on Phoenix's way to become a world city, but I think with a countywide effort it could be done. Some of things should already be done Olympics or not.

Think of transportation upgrades in context. UoP stadium would need 2 LRT routes on I-10 and Glendale Avenue to the present main line. That's one way of rationalizing the Maryvale issue with streetcars, and oh yeah, we'd need a few of those lines as well elsewhere. Amtrak and regional commuter rail would be needed as well.

Every single venue in the County would need to would have to be upgraded or replaced, and by the time the 2020's roll around every single one of them will need it. Every city has a stake. Wells Fargo Arena, Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Sun Devil Stadium, Mona Plummer, Chase Field, USAC, even the freaking Sundome are or will be old-timers by the time we could be ready. Imagine a $200 million capacity upgrade to UoP Stadium to bring it up to Olympic standards.

Other venues are purposely built and have varying levels of profitability and utility afterwards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Su...lympics_venues

is a good starting point. Pick your analogs, eyeball the costs.

Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park is one I was looking at earlier. It's an 80 acre complex on the dot. I figure about $70 million to build it--the cost of 2 Federally subsidized miles of LRT incidentally. What downriver city would be a good candidate for this?

I didn't even know about velodromes before. Find some place by a mountain or regional park to build a cycling mecca. South Central Avenue? Pinal County?

I think it's pretty ridiculous we don't have an Olympic-class swimming complex already. This has been talked about already.

By 2030, the Golden Corridor will be approaching build out in places. I imagine cities in Pinal County would be interested in stepping up to share costs as they'd be looking for venues of their own. We will be at that point where Coolidge could be a contender for a 10,000 seat arena. I'm actually in favor of this. They'd probably have a minor league team or two as well.

World cities need international connections. If we could somehow turn the political climate here I'd like to see sailing happen in Guaymas, our closest deepwater port. Direct air/rail passenger connections anyone? What would that take?

How do we pay for it all?

A variety of taxes, namely Spring Training, football, and that @#$!ing state sales tax that's coming will have expired by then, leaving more room than exists at present to take on new projects. Venues at ASU (eg, the Mona Plummer Aquatics Complex's replacement) would be partially paid for out of those funds.

Everything that's taxed today with the exception of income would have to be raised even past the chunk we'd pay for transportation upgrades which alone would be difficult to stomach. The property tax is one I'm looking squarely at, I don't know what the average homeowner would pay. Sales taxes would be up by at least two cents (on $10) when everything was said and done. Rental car and hotel taxes would have to go way up, but there would be little if any resistance by the hotel operators. They campaigned for building UoP Stadium back in the day.

It's likely the venues would be owned/managed by a countywide stadium district after the Olympics were over and their operating costs be subsidized by the individual cities out of their general fund, so there would be backdoor costs as well.

As pie in the sky as it sound, the Olympics in Phoenix are a natural outgrowth of a stalwart industry here. We certainly have enough to gain by them whether the Games pass whatever economic impact/feasibility/profitability study or not. The political will could be found and cities are learning about cooperation to do it. While I'm loathe to raise taxes for sporting venues when there are enough problems elsewhere, I'm certain that the Olympics as a reward for our combined efforts would make massive inroads in places we don't even know about.