Revised Boston Bid Plan Created With Surplus In Mind

(ATR) The head of the Boston 2024 bid believes generating a surplus from the Olympic bid is "doable."

Steve Pagliuca, who took over the chairman role of Boston 2024 on May 21, told the Seaport Innovation Forum on Jun. 17 that he expects the revised bid to generate a surplus from available revenue streams.

"We put together this budget to try to make sure that the budget has cushion in it and on top of that," Pagliuca said.

"We hope to create a surplus."

Opposition from the Boston 2024 bid comes from mainly the lack of transparency on how Boston won the United States bid city nomination and the risk that public funds could be used to pay for Olympic construction.

In their initial bid document to the USOC, Boston’s bid said that city bonds would be issued to purchase the sites for Olympic venues, after which money from private developers would offset the debt created.

"It definitely looks like the revenues will exceed the costs," Pagliuca told reporters after the summit.

"By how much, we’ll tell you [by June 30]. Hopefully, we’ll have the happy problem of figuring out how are we going to use that surplus to benefit Boston as we go forward past 2024."

Three venues for the bid have been announced: sailing, shooting, and tennis. Two of the three venues are located outside of Boston; the sailing venue is located in New Bedford, Massachusetts, while the shooting venue is located in Burlington, Massachusetts.

The initial bid concept promised a "walkable" Olympics, with 28 out of 33 venues in a 10km radius in the heart of the city.

Boston 2024 is expected to release their full bid plan in the next two weeks. Public support for the bid has been tepid, with the latest polls showing only 39 percent supportover the whole state of Massachusetts.

Written by Aaron Bauer

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