Games leave behind sleeker, greener Beijing

Jason Subler, Reuters 24 Aug 08;

BEIJING (Reuters) - Huge investment for the Olympics will cement Beijing's place as a world-class city and business centre, and leave a legacy of improvements for its residents.

Unlike Athens and some other past host cities, where the Games led to a mountain of debt and many of the venues now sit unused, Beijing and the Chinese government can comfortably afford the roughly $40 billion they have spent on the Games.

More importantly, less than a quarter of that bill has gone on purpose-built venues such as the Bird's Nest stadium. The rest has been spent on infrastructure such as new subway lines and projects like upgrading buses and boilers to cleaner technology.

"Many of the changes were necessary for Beijing's continued, brisk development, and the Olympics served to substantially accelerate their implementation," said Denis Ma, associate director of research in the Beijing office of property consultants Jones Lang LaSalle.

Ma pointed to the transformation the ever-expanding subway lines will bring about, as they help reduce vehicle emissions and allow the development of residential hubs in the suburbs.

Jing Ulrich, chairman of China equities at JPMorgan Securities, noted a range of other benefits that would help with the city's long-term development.

"With an improved transport system, financial services infrastructure, communications network and hospitality industry, post-Olympics Beijing will be better positioned to fulfill its potential as a world-class metropolis," Ulrich said in a report.

The state-of-the-art venues are also a legacy in themselves.

The new operators of the Bird's Nest, a consortium led by state investment group CITIC, plan to sell naming rights and make it home to one of Beijing's professional soccer clubs, building a complex of hotels, restaurants and shops around it.

COST VS BENEFIT

AEG Worldwide, a U.S. sports and entertainment management firm hoping to tap into a post-Olympics boom, has already teamed up with the National Basketball Association's NBA China to win the right to manage the Wukesong indoor stadium, which staged the Olympics basketball competition.

AEG is also looking at staging events in the Bird's Nest.

"We're interested in the Bird's Nest. We do have content that can fill the Bird's Nest occasionally," President and Chief Executive Officer Tim Leiweke told Reuters, citing a few European soccer clubs, including some from the English Premier League.

Leiweke said that Beijing was unlikely to eclipse Shanghai as a destination for major sporting and entertainment events.

"Shanghai is probably the most important and attractive market in the world for us right now," he said.

With many venues slated to be converted for use by the general public and several located inside universities, they are poised to benefit the broader community in a city of 17 million.

Equally important is the way the Games sparked the construction of new public spaces throughout the city, said Zou Huan, an urban planning expert at the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Not only would the Olympic Green likely rival Tiananmen Square as a prime destination for tourists in the future, but the many new parks and green spaces will give ordinary Beijingers a break from often cramped living conditions.

"They resemble European city squares in the sense of how they give people a space outdoors to chat, to meet up. That's very useful, and it is really changing the city life here," said Zou.

Ideally, city officials would have had the time to carry out their plans with more attention to detail, so as to avoid sacrificing some buildings of historical value, he said.

Thousands of people were also forced to move to make way for the venues, parks and light rail lines.

"But you have to look at the costs and benefits," Zou said. "Overall, I think the gains for Beijing's urban landscape are more important."

(Additional reporting by Tara Joseph; editing by Keith Weir)