The Olympic Money-Pit

Burning MoneyThe finger-pointing continues as May Gregor Robertson blames a “Total failure of leadership” for the growing cost overruns of the fabulous $1.16 billion Olympic Village. It seems that there’s concern regarding the city’s ability to recoup its investment when the units are sold so sales of the units have been halted until after the 2010 games. Gee…who would have thunk. Pour hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars into a real estate project initiated by the impending Olympics and we should all make a buck, right? Wrong. When the market tanks all bets are off boys and it looks like the taxpayers will once again be hung out to dry.

As we all know, the City Of Vancouver was forced to take over financing of the project after cost overruns resulted in problems for the original lender. A KPMG report states that the financial problems might have been foreseen in the developer selection process but the city brainiacs just picked the cheapest, not the most reliable. Coun. Geoff Meggs of Vision Vancouver believes that “breaking even” may be our best hope. We’ll see but I’m not holding my breath.

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