Olympic organisers are hopeful that the London athletes’ village will not be disrupted by non-stop partying from competitors who have completed their events.

Unveiling the £1 billion village that will be home to some of the biggest names at the London Games, including Jessica Ennis and the Team GB footballers, possibly David Beckham, the organising committee said the bright lights of central London should ensure that those who do party will do so away from those still in competition.

Athletes letting their hair down once they have finished competition is a recurring issue for Games organisers, with swimmers often singled out as the most likely to relax once their program is complete at the end of the first week.

Former triple-jump gold medallist Jonathan Edwards, now the chairman of the athletes’ committee that advised on the village design, complained about the conduct of some of his British team-mates at the Sydney Olympics.

“They are there to have fun,” he said. “They finish their competition and stay in the village and party for the rest of the Games. “If my sleep is interrupted by the swimmers coming back at 2am from a party because they are finished, I might be tempted to move out of the village.”

Former US double-gold swimmer Nelson Diebel once said the Games is “a two-week-long private party for thousands of hard bodies”, and Locog will provide around 150,000 free condoms in the village.Unveiling the facility on Thursday, Edwards said he hoped athlete’s would respect their peers in London. “I think that there will be a lot of respect shown for each other by the athletes who stay here,” he said. “For those who are still competing, a single slammed door at 1am the night before their event could have an impact.

“But if some athletes were making a lot of noise in the early hours I am sure that they would be told and sorted out by others.” Tony Sainsbury, the general manager of the village who has attended 13 Olympic Games, said he expected partying to take place largely off-site.

“With central London so easily accessible we think that anyone who is in that mood will go and do it in London. You are not going to want to come back here.”

There will be limited room for partying in the well-appointed but functional rooms that will be home for the athletes in the most important three weeks of their careers.

London believes it has created the best athletes’ village ever. It is closer to the Olympic Park than at any recent Games, with just a short walk or brief shuttle services taking them to venues. The rooms are all adequately appointed with functional furniture, courtesy of a vast procurement operation. The 2,800 apartments have been provided with 16,000 beds, 9,000 wardrobes and 11,000 sofas, all built by a 40-strong team working full-time assembling flat-pack furniture.

All rooms are twins, with two-metre by one-metre single beds, with 40cm extensions available for extra-tall athletes. Edwards and his colleagues personally tested eight different mattresses before deciding on which model to use.

The apartments will have four, six or eight athletes sharing and have internet access and televisions that will have access to all Freeview channels, as well as all streams provided by the Olympic Broadcast Network.

The flats do not have kitchens. Instead the athletes and teams will eat in a vast dining room capable of serving 5,000 covers at a time.

There will be a state-of-the-art gym and a polyclinic, as well as an anti-doping facility within the village. All athletes and team members will have to pass through airport-style security screening to get into the facility.

Edwards, who competed at four Olympics, said that they had focused relentlessly on detail to ensure that athletes have “the perfect platform” for putting in great performances.

“The most important things are getting a good night’s sleep, eating excellent food, and that the transport works. We think we have done that, and this is by far the best Olympic village yet in my experience.

“The Olympics is strange because it is the most important competition of your life but it’s perhaps the least ideal accommodation. At a World Championship I would be used to my own en-suite room. But when I won in Sydney I was sharing with a snoring Steve Backley.”

Facts and Figures

• 16,000 beds, 9,000 wardrobes and 11,000 sofas
• 22,000 pillows, 1,200 blankets and 28,000 duvets
• Each flat has its own lounge with TV and broadband
• 2,818 apartments across 11 residential plots

Source: London 2012 Olympics: athlete accommodation unveiled | The Telegraph
Tags: INFRASTRUCTURE | VILLAGE | FLATS

Forget Poundbury. A tramp round the monumental Olympic village on Monday in chill sunshine allowed time to reflect that here, covering 67 acres, stands a 3.2-million-square-foot laboratory the size of St James's Park. A place where 6000 humans will fill 2800 homes by late 2014, to begin the biggest experiment in mixed-community living ever conducted in Britain.

Today Mayor Boris Johnson revealed which councils get to fill the nearly 700 flats reserved for the poorest families. More than half will come from Newham. In 12 months an equal number of subsidised flats for those on household incomes up to £60,000 will come to market. As will the 1400 private flats for those who can afford £1000 per month or more in rent.

Six months later, in mid-2013, the experiment begins with the staged handover of the homes from the Olympic Delivery Authority. This comes after a nine-month post-Games race to make the flats fit for the less athletic to inhabit. Those conducting the experiment say they are sure that, by mid-2014, the 11 eight-storey blocks in East Village, as it is to be called, will be filled.

Inhabitants will have a ready-made school for 1800 children and a ready-made town centre in the shape of Westfield Stratford. But this is not a sales pitch, for little of the village will be for sale.

The 1400 private flats (and land for 2000 more) were bought for £557 million by Jamie Ritblat's Delancey, with backing from Qatar. These will be rented. Join the queue on the East Village website.

The 700 flats left, after the councils take their 700, are reserved for those who cannot afford to buy - a whole flat at least. Some will be for rent, some for part-sale. Elliot Lipton's First Base, plus East Thames and Southern housing associations set up a joint venture called Triathlon Homes. That paid £268 million for these "affordable" homes, with a £110 million government grant and a £158 million bank loan.

Trouble is, you won't be able to get near the place until January 2013. That's when a "tenure blind" joint marketing suite will be set up on site by Delancey and Triathlon. Take it from me; you will need good eyesight to spot which flats are private, and which are subsidised. "We think the Village will have wide-ranging appeal'" says Barry Jessup of First Base: "from high flyers to local families."

Property sector interest is different. Could the East Village become a mixed-use template to build mixed communities where the property owner rents rather than sells, just as is normal with office blocks? Sceptics say not. The £825 million the taxpayer has received for 2800 homes and land is at least £200 million less than it cost to build the village and all its infrastructure.

But how about this? On Wednesday, Canary Wharf Group announced it had paid £90 million for full control of the 16.8-acre Wood Wharf site, to the east of its own fully infrastructured estate, which has planning for 1600 homes. The Qatari investors in East Village also own a quarter of the company that controls Canary Wharf. Only connect?

Centre would prefer hubbie to hub
In property, "hub" is code for "what the hell else can we do with this dammed White Elephant". On Wednesday, the Olympic Park Legacy Company announced a shortlist of three smallish and untested firms to take possession of the one-million-square-foot Media and Broadcast centre after the games. One group wants to turn it into a fashion hub, another into a sport and retail hub and the third into an IT… well, you've guessed. This white elephant might die sometime before 2020.

Change is in the Eyre… but finished product is still a mystery
At 10am precisely on Monday February 6, mounted soldiers of the King's Troop will clip-clop out of St John's Wood Barracks behind a military band, jingling their way to a new home in Woolwich.

A few days later, Malaysian billionaire, T Ananda Krishnan, will wire the bulk of the £250 million he agreed to pay the Eyre Estate last October for the five-acre barracks, owned by the Eyres since 1732.

Representatives of the 50-odd beneficiaries of the Eyre Estate, led by Jim Eyre, of architects Wilkinson Eyre, were reportedly a little teary when contracts were exchanged on October 21 at the Barbican offices of lawyers, Linklaters. Dry those eyes. Your agent, Cluttons, got you top price.
A price that means "Tak", as Krishnan is known, will need to sell the private units for £2500 per square foot.

Not that Tak needs to worry that much. The Malaysian of Sri Lankan extraction and who began his career as an oil trader after graduating from Harvard, is worth $9.6 billion (£6.2 billion), according to Forbes. He has interests around the world: a tiny slice of that is a 20% holding in Johnston Press, owners of the Yorkshire Post. So, a very busy man.

But those who know the highly active 73-year old, say the last thing he will do is simply get on and build the 133 homes designed for the Eyre Estate by architect John McAslan. For a start, the man who made his pile in energy and telecoms will need to appoint a big name to run Visionary Properties, the Jersey-registered company set up to build the 76 private and 57 affordable homes.

Then a development adviser who actually knows how to build high-priced homes will be required. That's because it is unlikely to be London Square - the developer staffed by former Barratt executives, which helped Tak formulate his bid.

A new team will probably suggest trying to find a cheaper spot to build the affordable units. Why? Two reasons. Getting £2500 square foot for the 357,400 square feet of sellable space adds up to nearly £900 million. The trouble is the 50,000 square feet of affordable homes are worth a 10th of that which clips more than £100 million from the end price. Finding another site makes financial sense, if the planners agree.

Tak might also be persuaded to build fewer, larger, units; something very à la mode at the moment. "When you are paying millions, you don't want to have your neighbours peering through the window," says one involved. So it could be that the burghers of St John's Wood will see something dramatically different emerge in a year or so.

Source: Evening Standard
Tags: FLATS | INFRASTRUCTURE

The organisers of the London 2012 Olympics have invited the world to enjoy a bird’s-eye view of the completed “world-class venues” where the Games will be held next year. 

The new aerial images show the transformation which has taken place this year at the Olympic Park in east London, where the Games will start next July.

Building is now 90% complete and the Olympic Delivery Authority is on track to hand the site over to the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) early next year.

The images give a spectacular view of the park’s centrepiece, the Olympic Stadium, which was completed in March.

Also featured are venues such as the aquatics centre, the velodrome and BMX track, the basketball arena and handball arena, and the hockey centre, all unveiled during the course of the year.

And the pictures show that the site’s parklands - which include 4,000 semi-mature trees, more than 300,000 wetland plants and more than 10 football fields worth of meadows - and the international broadcast centre and main press centre are also ready to go.

That just leaves the Olympic Village, also seen from above as it approaches completion early next year.

Lord Coe, chairman of LOCOG, said: “A huge amount has been achieved over the past 12 months with iconic new venues completed and test events bringing world-class sport to the Olympic Park for the first time.

“We still have much to do but there is growing excitement as we count down to the Games next summer.”

Source: London24
Tags: VENUES | INFRASTRUCTURE

Six developers have been shortlisted for the first neighbourhood to arrive on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Set to be called Chobham Manor, the residential property scheme will be located between the VeloPark and Athletes Village, with 70 per cent of the 800 homes earmarked to be large enough for families.

The news from the Olympic Park Legacy Company comes after the British Council for Offices (BCO) recently predicted a rally in rents for east London offices as a result of the 2012 Games.

BCO chief executive Richard Kauntze explained rents for East End offices will increase, so long as companies can enjoy a well-connected public transport system, helping boost tenant demand.

With new homes set to be built in this part of the capital, businesses may find having a base here proves favourable, as individuals and families could look for local employment.

In addition, Stratford regional and international train stations will be within walking distance and connect to nine rail lines.

Taylor Wimpey and London & Quadrant, East Thames and Countryside Properties and St James Group are three of the shortlisted six developers.

They are joined by Barratt Homes and Le Frak Organisation, Notting Hill Housing, United Housing and HTA and the Swan Housing Association, Urban Splash and Yoo & Mace.

In 2014, the first residential properties are expected to be delivered. Commenting on the news, chief executive of the Olympic Park Legacy Company Andrew Altman said: "We have received an extremely strong response from developers interested in building Chobham Manor. This reflects the strong market appetite to develop family housing in the first neighbourhood to be created in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park."

At the end of November, the Olympic Delivery Authority Planning Committee approved a £1.3 billion development that includes 4 million sq ft of Grade A offices, known as the International Quarter.

The plans also feature a hotel and 350 homes.

Posted by John Evans

Source: Mellersh & Harding
Tags: ACCOMMODATION | INFRASTRUCTURE

In the late summer of 2012, the sporting world’s eyes will be upon London where the XXX Olympics (oh, behave!) will kick off with much fanfare and probably a good many shots on the television of the Queen’s Guard marching about seriously.

If all goes well for Olympic organizers, it’ll also feature a stadium with a new name. The Daily Mail reports that the Olympic Park Legacy Company is “looking to raise about £10million ($13.5 million) a year in naming rights for the three main arenas in Stratford after the 2012 Games.”

With the Olympic ceremonies alone estimated to be valued up £5b, it could be an unprecedented platform for brand exposure. That's why London 2012 organizers are seeking sponsors to sign on the dotted line and place their names on the new Olympic Stadium, aquatics center, and velodrome. The stadium alone should raise £6m ($8m) annually, the Mail reports.

The West Ham United club of the English Premier League are looking to move into the stadium after the Olympics end, the Mail notes, which would make it part of the growing numbers of teams that play in a branded stadium.

There has been a recent rash of Premier League stadia being sponsored by airlines. Newcastle United recently (and controversially) renamed its stadium SportDirect Arena, though it will go under its old name, St. James Park, during the Olympics.

The Mail notes that the Chelsea Football Club, long a powerhouse in the Premier League, has “spent the last year searching for a stadium title sponsor without success,” but “is hopeful of completing a deal in the new year.” Meanwhile, Queens Park Rangers and Tottenham Hotspur are also in the hunt if they can raise the cash to build new stadia, the paper notes. 

So if you want your name on a stadium in Britain, this may be your time. The market appears to be glutted.

If you’ve got big bucks, you might as well go for the biggest stadium jewel in Britain: Wembley Stadium is also looking for “an associate sponsor,” the Mail notes, although “the Wembley name will be protected.” According to the paper, “betting companies and mobile phone network suppliers are being considered.”

As for the London Olympics stadium's prospects after the 2012 Games are over? London organizers have no doubt pondered the home of the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. The city turned the velodrome into the very cool BioDome, featuring four different ecosystems for visitors and researchers.

Source: Brandchannel
Tags: VENUES | INFRASTRUCTURE

The mid-rise apartment blocks will house 17,000 athletes and officials at next year’s Games before being converted into East Village – a residential scheme for 6,000 new residents.

During a Metro tour of the Stratford site, 3,000 builders were still putting the finishing touches to flats that will sleep up to eight athletes.

With the event just around the corner, current levels of security are high – with checkpoints, electric fences and concrete blocks surrounding access roads for the adjacent Stratford City shopping mall.

But the area is set to be transformed by 2013 when residents start to move in to create a new community from scratch.

Almost half – 1,379 – of the homes will be affordable, offering a mixture of flats and townhouses at subsidised rents and for shared ownership.

The scheme should help tackle London’s shortage of high-quality privately rented homes at a time when spiralling deposits are denying first-time buyers a home.

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Rental contracts would run for years instead of months to encourage residents to put down roots, said Stuart Corbyn, chairman of the Qatari-backed developer QDD.

And families will be encouraged by the new 1,800-pupil Chobham Academy and the news that half the flats will have two bedrooms, he said.

The overall scheme consists of ten courtyard developments as well as a dramatic triangular block in an effort to mirror traditional London garden squares.

Some ground-floor space will be designated for stores, bars and restaurants – a vision that never materialised at other blocks lining nearby Stratford High Street.

‘That area is now slightly depressing and we will be working hard to avoid that,’ Mr Corbyn said. ‘It’s an incredibly important part of how people living here will perceive the area.’

Source: Metro
Tags: ACCOMMODATION | INFRASTRUCTURE