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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Toronto making $2.1B bid for 2015 Pan Am Games


Associated Press

TORONTO — Toronto will present a $2.1 billion bid this week for the 2015 Pan American Games.

The price tag includes a budget of $1.2 billion for the games and $900 million for an athletes' village, said bid chairman David Peterson on Wednesday.

He handed a copy of the 233-page bid book to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty on Wednesday, before heading down to Mexico to officially launch the bid on Thursday at the Pan American Sports Organization.

The other bidding cities are Lima and Bogota.

PASO will vote for the host in November.

The original budget was reportedly about $1.6 billion, although McGuinty slashed that by $270 million in January because of the economic downturn.

The federal and provincial governments will contribute 35 percent each of the of the $1.2 billion, or about $450 million each. Municipalities and private investors will pay the remaining $380 million.

The $900 million for the athletes' village comes out of a separate budget, said Peterson, noting the construction was already under way for the housing at West Don Lands on Toronto's waterfront. All three levels of government will help fund that project.

The site was officially announced as the planned home of the 32-hectare village in April, and it's expected to be turned into a mixed-income neighborhood served by transit after the games. It will be built regardless of whether Toronto wins the bid.

The bid promises more than 50 venues in Ontario's Golden Horseshoe region — from Niagara Falls to Minden to Oshawa — including six new facilities in Toronto, Markham and Hamilton.

Both Peterson and McGuinty said the games will boost interest in sports and leave the province with dozens of state-of-the art sports facilities.

The province is eager for the 15,000 construction jobs expected to be created if the bid is approved, as well as the 250,000 tourists and 10,000 athletes it should draw to the province.