World Report

Nikaia Olympic Weightlifting Hall, one of the venues built specially for the 2004 Games.

ike other countries that have hosted the Olympic Games before it, Greece is left with a legacy of superb sporting venues – and the matter of deciding the best possible use to make of them.

The Olympic installations include state-of-the-art stadiums, swimming pools and top-class centres for everything from basketball, fencing, football and horse-riding to kayaking, rowing, sailing and weightlifting.

In addition to the sporting venues themselves, there are hundreds of apartments in what has been described as one of the best-ever Olympic Villages, and huge amounts of office space.

In the run-up to the Games, the pressure was on to create a sports infrastructure of the highest possible standard to impress a world audience. Little time was devoted to working out what to do with the facilities afterwards.

“Large sums have been spent on the venues’ construction, but no economic viability studies were drawn up,” says Alternate Culture Minister Fanni Palli-Petralia. Now the government is seeking the most profitable use for them.
Some of the venues are already being used to host sporting, cultural and other events. Those that are currently standing empty will be leased out and could be adapted to commercial or other uses.

None of the installations will be sold off, according to the minister. “We will proceed with the utilisation of facilities based on long-term contracts,” she says.

Fanni Palli-Petralia
Alternate Culture Minister
“We will proceed with the utilisation of facilities based on long-term contracts”

The government is eager to avoid any involvement in the costly business of maintaining the premises. Its objective is to maximise social and financial benefits from the venues, and it sees some as possible centrepieces for encouraging development of the areas surrounding them.

Fanni Palli-Petralia says the government is ready to proceed to the first international tenders for concessions for some of the installations, including the Aghios Cosmas marina, one of the largest in the Mediterranean.

Fourteen of the venues are to be marketed by Hellenic Olympic Properties, a recently established state-owned property management company. Chairman Christos Hadjiemmanuil (INTERVIEW) is optimistic that foreign investors will be interested.

Not included in the company’s remit is the main Olympics stadium, which press reports have suggested could be leased to AEK Athens, one of Greece’s football clubs.