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In '08 when I went to Afghanistan, they had these things stacked up on top of each other all the way up to about 5 stories high. It was just like an apartment building.
Tour Vancouver’s Olympic Village
By Christopher Solomon of MSN Real Estate
Olympic Village
The Olympic Games’ organizers needed to build a small city to house athletes from more than 80 countries — so that’s just what they did. The Olympic and Paralympic Village Vancouver (center, in white), completed in November, will house 2,730 athletes and officials during the games (and 350 during the Paralympics in March). The 18-building, midrise complex occupies a prized place near Vancouver’s center, with sweeping views of False Creek and the North Shore Mountains beyond. After the games, the village will be turned into condos and apartments, including some affordable housing. The condos are selling for about $950 per square foot (information at millenniumwater.com). A home-field advantage: The building with the most stunning views is said to be the one to house the Canadian team during the Olympics.
- Video: Take a tour inside the Olympic Village
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Tour Vancouver’s Olympic Village
Vancouver athlete bedroom
The bedrooms in the units are Spartan — usually two modest beds. There is no phone or TV in the bedrooms, and the kitchens have been boarded up. (Athletes will eat at a central dining hall.) But Spartan doesn’t mean empty: 34,000 pieces of furniture, from beds to leather couches, were hauled in to furnish the apartments for the games.
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Tour Vancouver’s Olympic Village
Salt Building (athletes’ lounge) in plaza lights
Meeting and mingling with athletes from other nations is a huge part of the Olympic experience, athletes always say. In Vancouver, they’ll be doing it in the historic Salt Building (left). This warehouse was transformed into the “village living room” with lots of couches and TVs, equipment to play games such as pool, and a beverage bar featuring organic refreshments. Imagine a Swedish curler pummeling a Latvian hockey player in foosball while he sips a wheatgrass smoothie.
- Video: Take a tour inside the Olympic Village
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The green roof
Grass roofs are one of the most visible “green” aspects of this Olympic Village; about half of the village’s roofs are grass. The buildings also reuse rainwater to flush toilets and irrigate landscaping, and the project is built close to mass transit. And the most innovative green project is a $28 million system that takes heat from untreated sewage to provide heating and hot water to the village and surrounding neighborhood — all while reducing greenhouse gases. It’s the first system of its kind in North America and has been used only twice before, in Norway, says project manager Chris Baber.
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Civic Center lobby
A centerpiece of the Olympic Village is the Civic Center building, which sits on the shores of False Creek. During the Olympics, the 45,000-square-foot building will house a bank, store, post office, café, courier and a First Nations art gallery on the first floor, and office space for the Olympic Village’s “mayor” and staff on upper floors. Other village amenities include a 24-hour health clinic, Internet lounges and a “religious service center” with clergy members available by phone for athletes 24 hours a day. Talk about calling in extra help before the big match.
- Video: Take a tour inside the Olympic Village
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Net Zero Building
Vancouver’s Olympic Village hopes to be the first community in North America to be certified LEED “gold” by the Canada Green Building Council — a rare badge of honor. (The Civic Center was built with LEED “platinum” certification, the highest level of green building design in North America.) Another impressive building in the complex is the so-called Net Zero Building, which will use solar panels on its roof and other means to create as much energy as it uses — and use no more than it creates. After the games, this carbon-neutral building is expected to house senior citizens.
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Tour Vancouver’s Olympic Village
Feeding and entertaining the masses
All that competition — not to mention the daily workouts and training — is sure to work up an appetite. Feeding the residents of the Olympic Village is an Olympian task: Temporary, 14,000-square-foot, tentlike dining halls have been erected at both the Vancouver and Whistler Olympic villages. They’re open 24 hours a day and will serve about a half-million meals before the end of the games. What do you feed athletes from more than 80 countries? Variety, that’s what. The cuisine “definitely has an international flavor,” spokeswoman Kristen Harvey says. For example, types of rice from all around the world will be served to the athletes. But in a nod to the games’ Pacific Northwest location, bannock — Indian fry bread — will occasionally be on the menu, as will candied salmon, Harvey says.
Tour Vancouver’s Olympic Village
Seawall furniture
Vancouver’s city fathers have long had hopes of revitalizing this corner of the city. Once the games are done, the city hopes athletes’ apartments and condos will fill with people and begin to form a vibrant new neighborhood. (The city expects between 12,000 and 16,000 people to live in the area by 2020.) The Civic Center will convert into a public community center with a gym, fitness center, day care and restaurant. Outside the front door will be a floating dock to handle nonmotorized boating or just sunbathing. Altogether, 11 acres of park and waterfront have been redeveloped.
- MSN Astrology: What's your Olympic sport according to your Sun Sign?
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Tour Vancouver’s Olympic Village
Whistler
The games’ second Olympic Village is about 70 miles north of Vancouver, in Whistler. This village, called Cheakamus Crossing (it borders the raucous Cheakamus River) was needed to house the more than 3,000 downhill racers, lugers, bobsledders, cross-country skiers and officials who will be at Whistler during the games. Built on the site of an old landfill and recycling site, the community includes a 5,500-square-foot, high-performance fitness center and features many of the other amenities of Vancouver’s Olympic Village.
- Video: Take a tour inside the Olympic Village
- Delish.com: Gold-medal meals: What the athletes eat
- MSN Local: The legacy of the Winter Games
Tour Vancouver’s Olympic Village
Whistler townhouse
In an effort to make Whistler’s Olympic Village an asset for the future, 220 apartments, townhouses and condos were built. Nearly all of these units have already been sold, with occupancy to begin after the games. But they’ll need some refurbishing: In order to provide sleeping quarters for as many as 12 people, extra walls were installed in the townhouses before the games, and the units lack kitchens. The upside for homeowners who wait: extra-large bedrooms and extra bathrooms.
- Video: Take a tour inside the Olympic Village
- Catch the Games exclusively on MSN in partnership with NBC Olympics
| Guide to 2010 Winter Games events |
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