...and the winning bid goes to the Millenium Development Group. As part of their $193 million deal for the central site (Sub-area 2A) of the SEFC neighbourhood, they'll get to develop the Vancouver Olympic Village. The next closest bid was by Concord Pacific, which offered $170 million plus a profit sharing deal.
Link here (pdf) for the full Vancouver City Council report, which notes that 'the RFP was not structured to be a design competition; rather it was set out as a performance-based evaluation that measured abilities, commitments, and deliverables.'
This means that design plans for the site haven't yet been drawn up, however according to the report, they must now be prepared for a public hearing by 'early fall 2006'.
As for Millenium's prior experience, the Vancouver Sun reports that although they have not done a lot of construction in Vancouver, their Hermitage en Ville development was well received by the city planning department last year.
Millenium has selected Merrick Architecture as their architect for the development.
For a five minute video on the future Olympic site, go to www.gvtv.ca, click on the 'video archives' tab, and scroll down to 'Olympic Village'.
Original Post:
According to VANOC's latest update on the status of the Vancouver Olympic Village, construction won't begin until late this year or in early 2007.
As of November 2005, a short list of four developers submitted their detailed RFPs for the Olympic Village site, while the winner was supposed to have been selected in January of this year. So far, however, there's been no word yet on whose bid won, nor on what they have planned for the future site. (The picture below is simply a preliminary artist's conception).
Among the things we do know: the Olympic Village will be the first project to be completed within the larger redevelopment of the Southeast False Creek neighborhood. The broader project will cover an 80 acre area when it is completed by 2018.
One of the main features of the original Vancouver Olympic bid was the promise to create an Olympic Village that would serve as "a model of environmental, social and economic sustainability." This includes the requirement that all buildings be built according to gold or silver LEED standards of environmentally friendly construction.
In total, a minimum of 564 housing units will be built for the Olympic Village, along with commercial and retail space. Temporary structures will also be going up at the site, which will subsequently be removed after the Paralympic Games finish in April 2010. Reconfiguration of the athletes' accomodation will also occur, as the housing units are converted to be sold to the public.
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