SAN DIEGO—In addition to boosting tourism, the 2019 ANOC World Beach Games will draw spark investment in infrastructure and grooming of existing real estate for the athletes and their entourage, Carrier Johnson + CULTURE managing partner Vincent Mudd tells GlobeSt.com.

Mudd, who has served with the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp., founded and now chairs the nonprofit San Diego Exploratory Foundation, which works to transform San Diego “into a global center for innovative sports and active lifestyle.” Through SDEF, Mudd has spearheaded efforts to bring the World Beach Games to San Diego in October 2019. The multi-day athletics event is organized by the Association of National Olympic Committees for beach-oriented competitions and a global contingent of Olympic-level athletes and will bring new development and tens of thousands of people to the region in 2019.
Mudd has also worked on past bids to bring the Olympic Games to Southern California. We spoke with him about the potential impact of the World Beach Games on San Diego and the official Olympics US training facility just outside of San Diego, the Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Center.

GlobeSt.com: What do the Association of National Olympic Committees look for facilities-wise when deciding on a host city for their games?

Mudd: I would imagine there has to be a sincere or organic infrastructure model that already exists. For example, if you're going to look for a city to host the ANOC World Beach Games, there are probably a lot of places that can bring in sand and put up a volleyball net and bleachers and call it a beach city, but other cities are destination beach cities already without having to truck in infrastructure. Also, an organic level of competitive spirit and a genuine interest in attracting high performance athletes would seemingly be something desirable — look at these cities where some of these things take place, and you see that relationship. For example, Park City, UT, the site of the last Winter Games in the United States, was already a great winter sports city. After the Games all of the infrastructure — like the bobsled run — is still there and is integrated into their sports culture. It's an organic structure that's already in place. The same is true of the ANOC World Beach Games in San Diego. There's a high quality of life along the coastline and clean water, and the most important infrastructure is related to the safe and beautiful beaches, the perfect beach climate, a system of accessible roads, sidewalks and public access to the beach — and lastly, significant hotel accommodations for a large gathering of international guests.

In the past, for large multi-sport events, pretty much every structure was built for the games with the hope that they would be used afterward. But in future international multi-sports events, they're hoping to use currently existing facilities so cities can start developing venue models around existing structures. They don't need to build an athletes' village with apartments and condos — they can use the current university and its campus while the students are away. In San Diego, we can use the Hotel Circle hotels in Mission Valley. This way, the athletes will be able to be a part of the community and not be sequestered. Sometimes when athletes fly in from other countries for these events they compete and go home, and they may never get to enjoy the beautiful part of the world where they competed. By housing the athletes in the community, we believe the athlete experience is more positive and will be something future multi-event sports will mimic.

In our case, we're allowing for the existing real estate to be used for the athletes, along with the federations and media that come with them. They all need office space, so the office market generally does very well. That's a lot of people. Sometimes they don't mind being in the same general area as their competitors, but other times they don't want to be in the same building as everyone else. The real estate community stands to benefit from this.

San Diego is more than tourism – we have are one of the largest R&D hubs in the world. Just as we invent new high performance sports we also invent technologies which benefit the world health, wellness and the quality of life itself. With the entire world focused on San Diego during the ANOC World Beach Games, we will be arranging opportunities for people to tour our R&D facilities here. It could be beneficial to people who are working on technical or scientific problems across the world to see facilities where other people are working on, and potentially solving, the same problems.

GlobeSt.com: What do you believe will be the potential impact of the World Beach Games on the San Diego real estate market and the 2028 Summer Olympics in L.A. on that market?

Mudd: When we first started my group 10 years ago, called 32 for 2032 (now called San Diego Exploratory Foundation)—32 businesspeople and crazy people looking at our 2050 infrastructure map—we were thinking about what we have to do to accelerate and grow the real estate and infrastructure market so we could realize our goal to host an Olympics in San Diego before 2050. When it comes to the Olympics, in whatever country they're in, people are trying to figure out how to move massive amounts of people to a city and leave it better than when they got there. They may focus all their energy on a transit line, but wouldn't it make sense to make sure that transit line is aligned with the venue plan for the event? I cannot speak for the L.A. 2028 team; however, I imagine because L.A. has the 2028 games they have a decade to make sure that there's no wasted effort, that everything they are planning integrates and leverages their 2018 Olympic venue plans. This will ensure that they spend money wisely and leverage their dollars spent. There's no reason why L.A., with 10 years of opportunity and a 10-year runway, will not be able to maximize its real estate and planning assets in a way they wouldn't be able to without the Olympic games.

We believe in this so much that my architectural firm, Carrier Johnson + CULTURE, opened our second office in L.A. last year because we know that when the entire world starts seeing long term investment and infrastructure for the Olympics, they will be looking for people to build office buildings, museums, apartments and homes to support these games. Had San Diego won those games, a large number of infrastructure projects would have come as a direct result of hosting the Olympics.

For the San Diego ANOC World Beach Games, we're using the ocean and our beaches to do much of our hard work. As a result, our infrastructure costs are very low—we just have to make sure the beach is clean and safe. If we can deliver the ANOC World Beach Games at a reasonable infrastructure cost we feel ANOC will be able have future AWBGs in more cities around the world, and require less infrastructure and expense.

GlobeSt.com: What can you tell us about the official US Olympic training facility in San Diego?

Mudd: We're very fortunate because at one point there was talk of closing that training facility, when we were bidding for the 2024 Olympics. USOC worked with Chula Vista and Point Loma Nazarene University, which is one of the founding members of our San Diego Exploratory Foundation, and they were successful in taking over and managing that training center, now called the Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Center, a US Olympic and Paralympic training site. Last year they finished a world-class archery facility, the BMX tracks are finished, and they're expanding the aquatics. This is a great asset for Chula Vista, and it will be even more beneficial to these young athletes than the original training center was. Point Loma Nazarene is to be credited with seeing that a university—rather than private individual—got the right to run the center and focused on giving young people a chance to realize their elite athletic dreams. A private individual may have made it too exclusive—you and I and our kids wouldn't be able to go there without spending a lot of money. This entity will give more young people and adults the opportunity to discover the Olympics.

GlobeSt.com: What else should our readers know about these sports events and their relationship to the economies of the host cities?

Mudd: When your city becomes known as a place where people perform at the highest level, this doesn't just mean highest level in sports; it means the highest level in business, commerce, education and everything we attempt. Everybody wants to be around people who are high performers. It makes sense, and it's one of the reasons why people who have professional sports have it. It's not just entertainment for rich people. In professional baseball, even the umpires are the best in the world, doing their craft at the highest level.

National Geographic recognized San Diego as one of its “World's Smart Cities.” You don't get a documentary done and then become a Smart City—you're smart first. Many people who live in San Diego migrated here from some other place. People give up a lot to move across the country and across the world to take a shot at living the American dream in America's furthest west and furthest south city. We innovate in San Diego and see discovery as the modern-day gold rush. There's a driving spirit here, and people are willing to take on challenges. They're entrepreneurs and are ready to compete—and that's what athletes do. That's why smart cities have high-level performance. So major sports committees look for high-performing cities like San Diego to host their events because they'll attract more people to their programs. Everything you need to be able to compete at these high levels is located in the cities where these events take place. Everybody is getting an upswing with high-level events. Tourism aside, this all still makes a tremendous amount of sense: it's good for the economy and microeconomies that co-exist with competitive sports. Please find us online and volunteer to support the ANOC World Beach Games www.awbgsandiego.com; www.sdexploratoryfoundation.org/.

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