2010 Winter Olympic Village starts to take shape

The City of Vancouver has begun in earnest to develop the Olympic Village neighbourhood for the 2010 Winter Olympic games. In March the city officially broke ground for sitework at Southeast False Creek, the last remaining large tract of undeveloped waterfront land in downtown Vancouver that will be home to 2,800 athletes during the games.
The entire 32-hectare site is bounded by Cambie Bridge on the west, Main Street on the east, and 2nd Avenue to the south. The infrastructure work includes roads, water, sewer and community energy and rainwater systems. The consultants on site preparations are Morrow Environmental, Golder Associates, Stantec Consulting, Hay and Company, Levelton Engineering and FVB Energy.
In April the city selected the winning developer for constructing phase 1 of the Olympic Village buildings and facilities on the site. Millennium Properties Limited won the bid to develop a 2.6-hectare parcel for $193-million, a sum which surprised other developers by its high price (the next bid was $170 million). Millennium are entitled to convert the athletes’ residences into 800 market houses after the Olympic event, including 250 affordable units, but newspaper reports speculated that the price of a 600-square foot unit would have to be sold for at least $300,000.
Seventeen firms, led by Merrick Architecture Borowski Lintoot Sakumoto Fligg are on the Millennium Properties team. Engineering firms include Glotman Simpson, Cobalt, Acumen and Vector. Specialist consultants are Pioneer Consultants, Graham Harmsworth Lai & Associates, Keystone Environmental, Aqua Tex Scientific, Morrison Hershfield and Ward Consulting.
Their proposal won over competing bids by Wall Financial and Concord Pacific Limited.
Millennium’s plans are to achieve LEED gold and platinum green building status for the buildings. They also introduced a special Interfaith Spiritual Centre as part of their proposed facilities.