Dallas Olympic bid still distant, but detailed planning under way

Staging the 2011 Super Bowl in Arlington cost tens of millions of dollars and was considered the region’s most challenging event planning effort.

The expense and work required to organize a multibillion-dollar Summer Olympics would make that football game seem like barely a warm-up. Local backers would have to raise unprecedented sums of money, build a miniature city in Dallas and hope the summer heat wouldn’t arrive too early and spoil the party.

Matt Wood, head of an ambitious Olympic planning committee, has spent the last three years figuring out how to host the summer games in Dallas. Starting with blueprints from the Dallas 2012 Olympic bid from more than a decade ago, Wood and his colleagues have created a mix of old and new ideas.

"When you starting thinking about bidding for something the size of the Olympics, you can’t plan too soon," Wood said. "There’s no such thing as being too early."

The Dallas 2020 Committee was created to pursue those games, but the U.S. Olympic Committee chose not to bid on that round. The USOC — which has some members in town for the Team USA Media Summit at the Hilton Anatole — has not announced whether it would ask cities to submit bids for the 2024 Games.

The local committee’s goal, Wood said, is to prepare for the day when a full-scale bid needs to be assembled. For now, he and his colleagues — Olympic supporters as well as retired athletes — have created a framework for what the Dallas games would look like.

The new plan follows the USOC’s emphasis on a "compact" footprint for the Games. The Dallas 2012 group — which didn’t make it out of the second round of bidders — had a regional emphasis. The Dallas 2020 proposal is more Dallas-centric, with Fair Park’s collection of art deco buildings at its core.

Wood said the USOC indicated after the last bid that Dallas 2012 had "undervalued" Fair Park in its plans. This time, he said, he’s proposing the Fair Park area as the site for the Olympic Village, which would house 15,000 athletes. That would be the most expensive part of the Games.

Boon for Fair Park?

In Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Games, its lakeside village was projected to cost more than $1 billion although organizers planned to sell units as private condominiums and apartments afterward.

Wood said such a project could encourage more people to move to Fair Park and lead to redevelopment. He said other urban neighborhoods with reputations for high crime and poverty have gone through renaissances in recent years.

Other buildings at Fair Park would be planned as venues for table tennis, badminton, judo, handball and other sports that don’t require spaces for tens of thousands of spectators.

Sims Hinds, a vice president at Dallas-based HKS architects, which is helping with the Olympic committee’s planning, said those facilities would need renovations, including new bathrooms, concession stands and probably upgraded air conditioning.

The Dallas 2020 Committee is also looking a ways to renovate the Cotton Bowl to make it a track venue or possibly to build a temporary facility. The fields at traditional football stadiums are usually smaller than what’s needed for an Olympic track.

Hinds said the plans could allow a large percentage of the events to be held in an area directly connected to the village. And he expects that could give Dallas an advantage.

"The Olympic movement is a lot about camaraderie and interaction and cultures learning about other cultures through sport," Hinds said.

Daniel Huerta, Fair Park’s executive general manager, said the proposals are preliminary and would need City Council approval. They would also have to pass landmark review because of Fair Park’s historical status. But he said the Games could be a great opportunity.

"From a tourism aspect, this could be phenomenal," Huerta said. "We, as locals, take it for granted, but it is a unique treasure."

Despite the ambitious Fair Park plans, Hinds estimated that the area already has more than 80 percent of the venues needed to host the Summer Olympics. He said the infrastructure has expanded greatly since the last bid.

"That is way above what virtually every other city that competes for or lands the Olympics has to work with," he said. "Dallas is a blessed with a large amount of modern, versatile state-of-the-art venues."

When the last bid was made, the American Airlines Center wasn’t open yet, and Cowboys Stadium was just a dream. FC Dallas Stadium also has been constructed since then.

Some combination of expanded or temporary construction might be needed to supplement current or planned tennis and swimming facilities, Hinds said. He said the Chicago bid proposed building a permanent pool facility but making the 20,000 seats temporary.

Just considering infrastructure, Hinds said, Dallas is far ahead of many of the recent cities that have landed Olympics or soccer World Cup tournaments.

Ed Hula, who founded the Around the Rings Olympic news website, said Dallas might be considered a second-tier city, behind New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. However, he noted, that was also the case with Atlanta, which won the 1996 Summer Olympics.

"It’s more important that a city be able to deliver on its ambition, have the means and the energy and resources to deliver on its promises," Hula said. "That could very well be a city like Dallas."

Beating the heat

One element of hosting a Summer Olympics here hasn’t changed and won’t ever change: the heat. Last year’s blistering heat was a reminder of how inhospitable summer can be in the Dallas area.

Robin Blakeley, one of the Dallas 2020 founders, said they’ve talked about a mid- to late-June time frame that would potentially extend into the beginning of July. Summer Olympics are typically held in August, although some start in late July.

"That’s not something we want to do," Blakeley said.

He said a June Olympics could be held late enough to miss potential conflicts with the NBA or NHL championships but early enough to miss the hottest part of the summer.

The Dallas 2012 bid proposed a similar timeline. But some Olympic officials at the time were concerned about it interfering with Olympic trials, many of which are scheduled for June.

That would be a difficult, though not impossible, obstacle for the U.S. basketball team, said Jerry Colangelo , chairman of USA Basketball.

Training camps and exhibition games run for the three weeks leading up to this year’s London Olympics. This year, the NBA Finals could stretch through the first week of training because of the lockout-delayed schedule. For Dallas’ potential timeline, the Finals could extend two weeks into the Olympic basketball training period based on a more traditional schedule.

Colangelo — speaking Monday at the Team USA Media Summit — said a June start would require a large amount of planning and communication.

"You should get as much buy-in on the front end from the respective leagues so it would be a smooth, fluid transition," he said about planning an earlier Olympics. "That should be done beforehand — in other words, not make a decision and deal with it after the fact."

It’s not clear how much of a hurdle that would be, but the organizations are looking for other ways to cut down on the heat. Blakeley said Wood has met with contractors who have designed giant screens that could shade most outdoor venues.

"There’s always a way," Blakeley said.

AT A GLANCE: Dallas Olympic venues

A future Olympic bid being considered by a group of Dallas promoters would focus on Dallas venues, among them:

Fair Park — The centerpiece of the bid, it could host the Olympic Village and minor events like table tennis, badminton, judo and handball.

Cotton Bowl — It could be reworked to host some track and field events.

American Airlines Center — basketball

Southern Methodist University — tennis and swimming

IN THE KNOW: Team USA Media Summit

More than 100 U.S. Olympic athletes and coaches are in town for the Team USA Media Summit. Matt Wood, who heads a group laying the groundwork for a future Dallas Olympic bid, said his organization can’t take credit for landing the summit. The event, he said, was probably drawn by two factors: location and hotels.

Comments by U.S. Olympic officials back up that assessment. Dallas’ central location makes it convenient to reach from most of the country. Also, Hilton is a major USOC sponsor, and the Anatole is one of its premier properties. The hotel also has experience with large media and sports events. It was the NFL headquarters hotel for Super Bowl XLV and hosted Major League Baseball’s winter meetings in December.

Jeff Mosier

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