Whistler athletes' village feels like a home
Smaller-scale mountain venue gets seal of approval from some of its eventual users
By Gary Kingston, VANCOUVER SUNAugust 21, 2009
Work continues on the athletes' lodge, which features 100 rooms that will accommodate 200 people for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Whistler.
Photograph by: Lyle Stafford, Reuters, VANCOUVER SUN
Snowboarder Tom Velisek says athletes from around the world will be "blown away" by what they see at the Olympic Athletes' Village in Whistler.
That's good enough, joked a Vanoc official, to earn the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.
It might be a bit of hyperbole from Velisek, a member of Canada's national snowboard cross team, who will split his time between the Vancouver athletes' village and a team-secured private residence.
But after Thursday's media tour of the nearly completed village -- nobody from the 124-year-old lifestyle magazine made the trip -- it is clear that the diverse collection of accommodations does have more of a homey, village feel than some of the university-dorm-style "villages" of past Games.
In fact, the village -- expected to house 2,800 Olympic and 1,000 Paralympic athletes, officials, coaches and support staff next February and March -- will be turned after the Games into a new neighbourhood called Cheakamus Crossing.
Nearly 97 per cent of the 220 apartments, townhouses and condos to be made available as affordable housing for Whistler workers has been sold. Twenty "at-market" three-bedroom condos, at a cost of about $850,000 each, and some single family building lots that start at $475,000 will go on sale soon.
All of that is designed to ensure the resort municipality, whose wholly owned subsidiary Whistler 2020 Development Corp. manages the village, recovers the $160 million it spent turning the old landfill and recycling site south of town into an attractive, sustainable community. There are spectacular mountain views and the Cheakamus River snakes through the nearby forest.
"We came in 3-1/2 years ago, standing in the landfill, a couple of crows flying and the place was just full of garbage and I was looking up going 'Oh my God, what is going to happen here?" said Nejat Sarp, Vanoc's vice-president of villages and services. "Sure enough, we've created a gorgeous, gorgeous site."
Work on the village, which also includes the Vanoc-financed Whistler Athletes Centre -- a 5,500-square-foot high-performance fitness centre, a 100-room lodge and 20 townhouses -- is 95-per-cent complete and on track to be turned over to Vanoc by Oct. 31.
During the Games, the fitness centre will be filled with sport-specific training equipment and open 24 hours. In the front of the building, athletes will be able to relax around pool, shuffleboard and fuseball tables.
Part of the fitness centre will be turned into a gymnastics hall after the Games, when Whistler 2010 Sport Legacies will operate the centre, the lodge and the townhouses.
With terraced streets separating the condos and apartments, paved walking trails and a forested area in behind, the village does, as Velisek suggests, have something of a community feel. During the Games, there will be retail outlets, including a bank, hair salon and grocery store.
But the athletes who choose to stay full-time in the village -- Canadian skiers, bobsledders and lugers have secured private residences around Whistler that they will use extensively -- will still be sleeping two to a room, with as many as a dozen in some condos.
And some of those rooms are best described as spartan, particularly the ones in the 80 modular units that will be turned post-Games into low-income housing in six B.C. communities, including Sechelt, Chetwynd and Enderby.
Before leading reporters into the modules, Dan Doyle, Vanoc's executive vice-president of construction, said athletes really only wanted two things -- "Internet connectivity [and] curtains on the showers and curtains on the windows. We can provide that."
As a bonus, while two athletes may share a room, they'll have their own washrooms. Sarp says Vanoc has done all it could to try to meet athletes' demands for comfortable beds, the latest in communication technology and privacy -- while also creating a level of social interaction.
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