ruins of the near past

Put another way, Beijing's present is London's future:

But for many Beijing residents, the Bird's Nest is little more than a curious venue for a hodgepodge of infrequent recreational events and pop music concerts.

The stadium that seats 90,000 and cost 3.6 billion yuan hosted only a dozen events last year. Moneymakers included the Italian Super Cup football match, a stopover by athletes with the TTR World Snowboard Tour and a Rock Records 30th anniversary concert.

Comments

[Charlie]

To be fair, the London organisers have tried quite hard to avoid this outcome. The Stratford stadium is supposed to be easily dismantled and reconfigured as a smaller venue. It's much, much lighter than the Beijing design in any case; a virtue in the Buckminster Fuller view of things. The risk here is that sentimental people will clamour for it to be kept intact as a 90,000 seater. The park itself and the Olympic village make for a decent regeneration masterplan and are well integrated with infrastructure such as HS1 (it stops right underneath) and multiple tube lines. Swimming pools are rare in London and popular, although it will need a maintenance subsidy. The velodrome and the handball arena could become padlocked hulks; we'll see.

But I'm optimistic about the urban design aspect of all of this. This is the third time London has held the Olympics. The last time around we got the stuff at Wembley, and people do still go to concerts at the original Wembley arena. White City is a bit more doubtful: the government basically made the BBC go there to use up the land.

[dsquared]

London is much more of a concert tour destination than Shanghai, even now. The venue capacity added by O2 got gobbled up so quickly I think there could definitely be enough demand to fill Stratford.

[Richard J]

i White City is a bit more doubtful: the government basically made the BBC go there to use up the land.

Land in London in 1948 had a slightly different marketability to land in London now, even 5 years into the credit crunch...

(Mind, I was in Doha this weekend, where they appear to be trying to create a city with exclusively high-level executive housing. What's going to happen there after 2022 with all the stadiums is anybody's guess.)

[Charlie W]

Part of the White City site (a large part) got turned into social housing, if I read Wikipedia right. But the 1908 stadium seems to have hung around - mostly un-used - until 1986, when it got replaced by a BBC building. I suppose stadia are particularly susceptible to this, perhaps because they don't have roofs. And if you can believe it, there is still empty land at White City: we know this because we were recently asked to plan some of that high-level executive housing for it. There might be demand for housing, but it doesn't seem to convert easily into supply.

[Richard J]

There might be demand for housing, but it doesn't seem to convert easily into supply.

As a paper that recently came across my desk put it...

* Prior to 2008, developers could finance up to 85-90% of project cost with senior debt and potentially up to 100% with a mezzanine tranche. The senior debt cost would typically have been 6-8%.

* Since 2008 there has been a very significant retraction from the sector with many of the key lenders - BOI, AIB, RBS, Lloyds and the Icelandic banks – withdrawing completely. The senior debt market today is dominated by one firm – Close Brothers – with a small handful of other firms (Investec, Jordan International Bank, Barclays, Dragonfly and Wolsey) lending very selectively. As a result, the cost of new financing has increased significantly.

* Small and medium sized builders seeking financing for their speculative investments can raise 50-70% of project costs at a circa 10% all in annual rate, while those willing to obtain financing for up to 90% of cost can achieve it by paying circa 25-30% annually on an incremental mezzanine tranche, implying a total blended cost of debt of 14-16%.

[belle le triste]

"Swimming pools are rare in London" -- is this true? What's the comparison?

(I'm not at all challenging the claim, I'm genuinely interested: I swim a lot and have several friends who do the same -- and my part of Hackney is served by five pools in easy reach, walking or bus... admittedly the Hackney Central pool is notoriously a bit horrible in terms of cleanliness, but three of the others, inc. esp. the London Fields lido, are excellent.)

[Richard J]

In sunny SE London, there's three/four I can think of in a singe bus ride.

Perhaps it's a Camden thing, along with the lack of parks and green space.

[Charlie W]

As far as I can tell, London has maybe 1-2 indoor 50 m pools (the current Olympics will add another) while Paris and Berlin each have just shy of 20.

[belle le triste]

Indoor pools are for wets and weeds: the Hackney lido is 50 m under the wide lovely skies themselves.

It's true that a lot of London pools are smaller than that -- so not so great for actual sport, which I have zero interest in.

Note: swimming outdoors when it's raining hard is surprisingly difficult -- the burst of raindrops into your face right IN your face stings!

[Guano]

The pool at Tooting Bec Lido is 90m long (the largest fresh water, open air swimming pool in England).

[nick s]

the 1908 stadium seems to have hung around - mostly un-used

For twenty years, and then it became a dog track for the next 56 years, which isn't too shabby.

[gastro george]

"The velodrome and the handball arena could become padlocked hulks"

IIRC, if Manchester and Newport are anything to go by, the velodrome will be packed. High running/maintenance costs, though.

[Charlie W]

I'm struggling to imagine a meeting of our masters resolving that the Stratford stadium should become a dog track. Still if that does happen, I hope they name it for Sebastian Coe.

[Chris Williams]

Musing on this, I discover that there are only 3 dog tracks left in London. Surely there's a use for the arena right there? Better than West Ham getting their greasy mitts on it, in any case.

[belle le triste]

Walthamstow Dogtrack remains in limbo, I believe. rather than decisively closing yet and becoming flats. I'd imagine if greyhounds are an option, people would prefer they return to race at the Stow rather than shift them down to Stratford, if this is do-able.

[Strategist]

Better than West Ham getting their greasy mitts on it

What's wrong with the Hammers going there? Seems like the perfect option to keep the place busy in the future. You can't say they're not local. And reusing a Games arena seems to have worked for Man City.

Perhaps it's a Camden thing, along with the lack of parks and green space.

Hampstead Heath, anyone? Outdoor swimming in a pool is for wets and weeds... in Camden you get wet and covered in weeds.

(Not a Camden resident, but wouldn't mind being)

[Jasper Milvain]

Greyhound racing isn't what it was. It resumed at Wembley, incidentally, two weeks after the 1948 Olympics.

[redpesto]

Strategist:

What's wrong with the Hammers going there? Seems like the perfect option to keep the place busy in the future. You can't say they're not local. And reusing a Games arena seems to have worked for Man City.

That, and the subsequent appearance of eccentric billionaires...

[chris y]

They found a WWII UXB at the dog track in Sheffield the other day, which seems to say something about how much regular attention it gets.

[chris williams]

It also says something about how bombed Sheffield got. Olympic digression: today I went to something called the City of Coventry Stadium to watch Gabon lose to Mexico and the ROK beat Switzerland. Sterling research in the ladies lavs reveals that the only brand not masked off was Armitage Shanks. Potteries FTW, clearly.

[Alex]

Walking around the ex-Tempelhof Airport the other day, I came across a van from a private bomb disposal company. Kemmer Engineering GmbH, Kampfmittelraumung.

[Chris Williams]

Clearly, the bomb disposal business is booming.

[ajay]

I hope you are ashamed of yourself for that one, Chris.

[Chris Williams]

Feel kind of dirty, but sometimes, things have to be said. A lonely and pathetic feedline, lying there unresponded to and thus unloved, makes me very sad.

[Richard J]

They found a WWII UXB at the dog track in Sheffield the other day, which seems to say something about how much regular attention it gets.

I dunno, at least two of my clients have had UXB encounters in the past twelve months or so (one central London, one Germany.)