The plans for the Olympic Village
By Natasha G. Manou
y the end of the year the Olympic Village, the biggest construction project of the 2004 Athens Olympic games, with a budget of 125 billion GRD, will have been put out to tender. The Village, which will accommodate 17 100 athletes and the accompanying support staff, will be built by the company Olympic Village S.A. in the foothills of Mount Parnitha on the outskirts of the Municipality of Acharnes and will cover a total of 1 240 000 square meters. As announced by the Junior Minister of Labour responsible, Mr Christos Protopappas, together with Mr Georgos Ioannidis, the President of the Workers Housing Organisation, which will fund the project, the company Olympic Village S.A. will divide the construction of the project into four parts. The companies and consortia which will undertake the building work will be chosen by open international tender. Out of a total of 1 240 000 square meters, 13.3%, i.e. 165 000 square meters, will be built on while the remainder has been set aside for playgrounds, green areas, and pathways (with the exception of the International Zone). 2 300 residential buildings, mainly two or three storeys
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high, will be built in the Olympic Village. The plan for the construction of the Olympic Village, recently approved by the Ministry for the Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works, ensures a variety of building styles and an improvement in the quality of life by scheduling 14 different styles of building. The business interest of building and construction companies from Greece and abroad is focused on two projects. The first is the building work which, according to the
information available, will be split into four sub-projects, each of which will have a budget of 25-30 billion GRD and a deadline for completion set for the end of 2003. According to the town planning survey by Olympic Village S.A., the buildings within each district will all be similar in style and have been classified according to cost and difficulty of the work. The Workers Housing Organisation is currently drawing up the tenders for each of the four parts of the Village and they are expected to be published by the end of December. Meanwhile, around 50% of the process of clearing, preparing and fencing the area has already been completed. This work will cost 1.48 billion GRD and was begun at the end of August after being awarded to the submitter of the lowest tender. As well as living accommodation, the built-up area of the Village will have to include a school, a church, areas for cultural events, an open-air theatre, a nursery and sports facilities. The buildings will cover a total of 20 000 square metres and be built within an area which covers 151 000 square meters in total. The second focal point for construction companies is the Commercial Zone and the Administrative Centre. According to the survey, this
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area will house communal services, a Health Centre, a shopping centre, a supermarket, specialist shops etc. which will be used after the Olympic Games by the approximately 10 000 permanent inhabitants of the Olympic Village. After the games, the International Zone (as it will be called during the Olympics) will be used by two bodies. The Workers Housing Organisation will, in a type of real estate exchange system, give part of the International Zone to a contractor chosen by tender. The remainder of the Zone will, according to the information available, be developed jointly by the Workers Housing Organisation and this contractor. In the Commercial Zone and the Administrative Centre, many of the requirements of the Olympic Games will be met by prefabricated buildings and temporary facilities in marquees, while immediately after the Games they will be replaced with permanent
structures. As far as the area covered by the International Zone is concerned however, the building site will cover 165 000 square metres, of which 43 000 square metres will actually be built on. The International Zone will be surrounded by 122 000 square metres of hedgeways, pathways, squares and green areas, while 263 000 square metres have been set aside for parks, pathways and sports facilities for the Village.
The Olympic Village will have its own autonomous water supply, sewage system, electricity (a Public Power Corporation sub-station will of course be provided to cater for its needs) and natural gas, while also envisaged are flood protection networks and a sewage system which will also serve the surrounding area of the Municipality of Aharnes and the Community of Thrakomakedones, which borders on the Village.
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