2028: Real estate development strategies towards a successful Olympic legacy

Since the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, where the Dutch Olympians won a record amount of Olympic medals, the Olympic Dream has yet again awoken in the Netherlands. The dream to stage the Olympic once again, exactly 100 years after the first and only Olympiad in the Netherlands, was aimed at 2028. So why would the Netherlands want to host such an event? And how show they tackle the assignment? After the Olympiad in Athens in 2004, the Dutch Olympic dream had gained enough support to establish a concrete movement. This was done by establishing the ‘Alliantie’, a collaboration between the Dutch Olympic Committee, the NOC*NSF, the national government, the provincial government and the municipalities of the four largest cities in the Netherlands. The ‘Alliantie’ were to lead the exploratory studies of the Olympic assignment in the Netherlands. This finally led to the ‘Olympisch Plan 2028’, a report which included the ambitions, challenges, strategies and future circumstances of the potential Olympic assignment in the Netherlands. Eight ambitions were distinguished, of which the ambition that will have the most dominant stamp in the Netherlands, is the spatial ambition. In this ambition branch the ‘Alliantie’ initiated a single workshop study in order to explore the spatial assignment the Olympics would impose in the Netherlands. This study provided the basic framework and information for numerous studies to follow. One of which is the study Deloitte and NIROV have conducted on the Dutch stakeholders’ willingness to invest in Olympic developments. This is where this research comes into play; how did former host cities tackle the Olympic assignment? First of all, a superficial scan was made of former hosts and Olympic researches. Quickly the conclusion was reached that the Olympic developments in a city do not always bring the supposed successes and increase in quality. In many cases the Olympic developments were not used, under used of not used correctly. This created so called ‘white elephants’, large venues and facilities that cost more money than they provide, which inevitably lead to high debts. Major international cities like Melbourne, Montreal, Sydney and Athens, were not able to coop with the developments after the Olympic circus had left town. So how could a small nation like the Netherlands be successful were other great nations and cities could not? Thus the second problem can be distinguished; how to fit the Olympic assignment in the Netherlands, especially the building left behind, the legacy. Therefore the following problem statement was made: Due to the lack of sufficient attention to the long-term objectives for the post- Olympic real estate, undesired ‘white elephants’ arise from the Olympic real estate legacy in the former host cities. What is legacy exactly, and how is it created? These question were the next step in identifying the problem. Legacy can be identified in two categories, tangible or hard legacy, and intangible or soft legacy. Soft legacy can be described as the values, the knowledge, the memories and the general Olympic thought the Olympiad provides the host city. Hard legacy is the architecture, the infrastructure and the economic impact the Olympics leave behind. However a conference held in 2003 discussing the term legacy and what role it can play in Olympic cities, came to the conclusion that legacy is multidisciplinary and dynamic and is affected by a variety of local and global factors’. Therefore legacy creation is unique is every single city and location, and it is thus difficult to make a general definition. The Olympic development process plays an important role in answering the question on how legacy is created. The process consists of three phases; the initiatory and bidding phase, theorganisation and realisation phase and the post-Olympic phase. How does legacy creation fit into this process? To answer the latter question, a conceptual model was made on what influences legacy. Indirectly the before distinguished local factors play a significant role. The traditional planning culture of a nation, region or city determines the possibilities and opportunities of Olympic developments. Directly, the used development structure that is used to accomplish the Olympic assignment, plays an even larger role, as it includes all the pieces of the puzzle that are needed for the creation of the Olympic developments. The aspects that have been identified to the development structure are the initiative, objectives, stakeholders, organisational structure, budget, financial structure and the interferences. In addition the consequences, i.e. legacy, of the compilation of these different aspects is also of importance to learn lessons from former Olympic host cities. In turn, within the development structure aspects a division can be made between characteristics on four different sustainable development ambition levels; the governance, social , spatial and economical level. The objectives, strategies and legacies all have different perspectives which include all the different levels. This entire process then produced the following research question; Which development structure1 has the greatest potential concerning legacy1 for an edition of the Olympic Games in the Netherlands in 2028?

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