All in all, Washington outlined 33 sites--23 of which already exist--in the District, Maryland and Virginia to host the variety of games that would have taken place. Those undeveloped venues that remain a possibility include an 85,000-seat stadium and an arena at what would have been the Olympic Sports Complex at the current site of RFK Stadium, an 18,000-sf arena and a 5,500-sf velodrome in Baltimore and a 5,000-sf aquatic center in Arlington.
"The projects that were to be built needed to be done anyway and were intended to be adapted to the Olympics," Chesapeake Region 2012 Coalition Senior Vice President Clarence T. Bishop, tells GlobeSt.com. For the Olympics, we only needed the facilities for 17 days, whereas the communities need and would use the facilities for years. I know Baltimore needs an arena whether there is an Olympics or not, so there is still an effort to pursue that." With regard to the Baltimore arena, Bishop is certainly in the know. Coincidentally, he also holds the title of chairman of the board of the Baltimore Convention and Visitors Association.
Of the four city's competing to become the two finalists for host city, the DC area's Olympic budget bid was the largest at $2.8 billion. The estimated cost of all new construction would have been, "several hundred millions of dollars; mostly centered on the Olympic Complex at RFK," Bishop notes. Development of the temporary facilities alone would have taken an estimated $205.5 million from that budget.
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