Chicago 2016: Looking To Atlanta For Answers

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Sep 21, 2009 2:20PM

As we're inside of two weeks until the announcement of the 2016 Summer Olympics host city, some are beginning to look to other Olympic cities for indications as to what the future may hold for Chicago. Specifically, eyes turn towards the last American city to host the Summer Olympics: Atlanta (1996). [Note - three Chicagoist staffers - Benjy, Tim, and myself - lived either in Atlanta or close enough to Atlanta at the time to attend Olympic events.] The Tribune's Dahleen Glanton took a look at the legacy of the Atlanta Games and came up with interesting, yet not wholly surprising results. While those who were involved with the Games continue to proudly proclaim how wonderful the Games were for the city, the actual results are a bit harder to detect.

A.D. Frazier, the chief operating officer for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, was perhaps the most vocal in support of the Atlanta Games' success: "Atlanta benefited more than any other city in the history of the Olympics...If you win a Super Bowl and a World Series and multiply it by 100, that is the passion and pride you feel about the opportunity to welcome the world to your community." And, indeed, Glanton offers up several examples of institutions that got a big boost from the Olympics.

But what of the decision to fund the Games exclusively via private investors? That, it seems, did not turn out exactly how the city had planned. And it's a topic of interest to those who are skeptical of the City of Chicago's claim that there will be plenty of money to fund the 2016 Games without turning to taxpayer cash to cover shortfalls.

Richard Padgett, who headed the Downtown Development Authority, said it was a mistake for Atlanta to try to finance the Olympics only with private funds. As a result, he said, the city missed an opportunity to solicit state and federal funds to revitalize neighborhoods and upgrade infrastructure, such as roads and an aged sewer system that the city is now spending $4 billion to replace.

"We got a baseball stadium and a very nice public park in the heart of the city. It's tough to say there were a whole lot of results other than that," Padgett said. "The business community believes it got what it wanted. But not everyone is sure we got enough."

The "legacy" of the Games is a big selling point for Mayor Daley and other supporters of the bid - see: the proposed Washington Park ampitheatre that would be left in the wake of the main Olympic stadium. In the end, the measuring stick used to either show why or why not the Games should come to Chicago all depends on your point of view. It's easy to point to Atlanta's meager $10 million profit from hosting the '96 Games, but that would be ignoring the intangible impact of the Games on the Olympics: revitalizing infrastructure, improving transit, etc. Ultimately, what matters is those in charge.

And the fact the City hired a firm run formerly co-owned by the brother of Ald. Solis (25th) - with previous city deals and ethics violations to boot - to run security detail for officials during next month's trip to Denmark for the 2016 announcement already gives us pause as to what's to come if we're awarded the Games and how many more clouted contracts await. Not to mention that a closer look at finances shows taxpayers are more at risk than those running the bid might like us to believe.