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Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #408
(FEATURE) THE FIRST VENUE: AN OVERVIEW OF THE WHISTLER NORDIC CENTRE
Here's what we have gleaned about the work to be done once the first major venue contract to be issued by the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee, for the C$61 million Whistler Nordic Centre (WNC), moves from the promise-to-the-IOC stage to the start of construction. The design contract is expected to be awarded in July.
The general timeline: ground preparation begins this fall, construction will begin next spring and the Centre will be completed by the fall of 2007. That will give two winter seasons -- 2007/8, 2008/9 and possibly late 2009 -- for the facilities to be used for trial runs and training by various teams. [See BACKGROUND, below, for a detailed timeline - ed.]
Although the specific design of the Centre, to be built in the Madley Creek area of the Callaghan Valley just west of Whistler, isn't yet known -- it's what the first contract will be involve, after all -- we know that the general shape of the WNC building is likely to be that of a horseshoe, to maximize athlete viewing, and it will face south. Why south? So that athletes will start and finish with the sun in their faces -- a requirement of television.
And, because the building will also be used for the Paralympic Games, all the physical aspects of the building are to be designed to readily accommodate athletes, coaches, support staff and those in the audience with disabilities.
The competition courses will generally run south from the stadium (training and other areas will run in the other directions.) The WNC Olympic events include biathlon, cross-country skiing, Nordic combined and ski-jumping. The Paralympic events are biathlon and cross-country only.
In addition, the overall pattern of the complex in relation to the various hills and areas used by it will be star shaped, with the stadium in the centre of the star. All of the runs will be within walking distance of each other, particularly so as far as the spectators are concerned.
The heart of the Centre complex will be eight kilometres from the access road's junction with Highway 99. At the moment, it's just a forest service road that goes into the area. The B.C. Ministry of Highways is to construct a four-lane paved road for the first four kilometres, and a three-lane paved road for the remaining four kilometres. It will terminate in a parking lot at the Cross Country station. The MOT is in the process of retaining a consultant now to work on preparations for the new road. A power-line right of way will also be constructed beside the road. Some existing rough trails will be upgraded and some new trails will built through the old North Air Mines property to the top of the ski-jump venue.
We also know that VANOC expects there will be 1.8 million event tickets available throughout the weeks of each set of Games, that it expects about 80,000 visitors for the Olympic events, and about 40,000 for the Paralympic events all told.
However, VANOC expects that there will be between 10,000 and 12,000 spectators that actually show up at the Centre during the Games, and so the planning will be dealing with those capacities at each of the venue's public areas, and that will mostly be done using what VANOC terms an "Olympic overlay". Essentially, that means that VANOC plans to install temporary seating and other services to deal with those sizes of crowds at the finish lines and along the necessary trails -- starting in June 2009, to be completed by January 2010 -- and that the Centre won't need to permanently plan to deal with that many people. In fact, there is an entire binder dealing with the Olympic overlay requirements that will be made available to the design firms that win the WNC and Sliding Centre contracts
The contractor will be under various major restrictions in its approach to the design and construction: cost, sustainability, environmental and aboriginal. How the proponents of the bids, which include engineering and architecture, handle these aspects will be weighed in determining who gets the contract.
VANOC is expected to be difficult to deal with when it comes to budget overruns, and it's building a considerable amount of details about this concept right into the contract, right down to the design phase. "If there is a cost overrun," says the bid document, "the consultant will be required to adjust the design concept at no additional cost to VANOC, to meet the construction-cost budgets provided." VANOC also says it will hire a general contractor "to provide an independent check on the quantities and unit prices" of materials that will be going into the venue construction.
VANOC also expects the design contractor to understand it means business when it wants minimal impact on the environment, during construction and in the design of the runs and the buildings. In part, that's because it's one of the major conditions placed on VANOC by the International Olympic Committee -- and that, too, will be built into the contract.
VANOC is expecting to see "high-performance green buildings and systems" emerge from the design process. Interestingly, the bid documents walk a tightrope about the ratings systems to be used in judging just how 'green' the building will be. The IOC uses the LEED standard of judging this quality, and that's the promise the Bid Corporation made in the Bid Book, but that's an American-based standard which competes -- in the true business sense -- with other standards in use in Canada, and in particular, British Columbia. These competing rating systems are not happy about the concept of giving LEED a beachhead in British Columbia. VANOC intends to judge who gets the contract by how 'green' the building will be in proponent's concepts by using rating systems that equate to LEED, but it does not seem to be making it a mandatory requirement. [See BACKGROUND section for previous stories on the LEED controversy - ed.]
Also in the bid documents: "Sensitivity to First Nations interests and aspirations will be important in the design of the venues and Games planning activities... proponents should consider whether there are opportunities for social procurement and training in the context of services." These two concepts are a nudge in the direction of VANOC wanting to see extra consideration given to aboriginal hiring and training without making it a specific requirement of the contract. The Lil'wat and the Squamish native Indian bands, whose lands are near the area, are represented on VANOC's board of directors.
The contact will specify that not just the main contractor will be expected to be environmentally, aboriginally, socially and budget-friendly, but all of its suppliers will be required to operate under the same umbrella, which implies similar contract wording will be incorporated into sub-contractor agreements as work is farmed out.
PREPARING THE SITE: VANOC has done quite a bit of site preparation, even as it was making the transition from the Bid Corporation to that of the Olympic Organizing Committee. Since last fall and into this spring, VANOC staff and consultants -- using hydrological studies by Kerr Wood & Leidl, environmental studies by Enlean and preliminary geotechnical studies by Golder & Associates -- identified the functional areas of both the WNC and its companion Sliding Centre, a C$31 million project that will start shortly.
They also flagged the sizes of the space needed, the general broadcast media requirements, the judging areas, the medical support and anti-doping requirements, the general requirements for food services, spectator seating, and areas for athletes, coaches, teams and their equipment storage. And some preliminary construction work has already begun on the ski-jumps.
However, more geotechnical, hydrological and environmental work must yet be done, and that's underway now. For instance, Piteau & Associates are due to report about now on its search for potable water that can be used by WNC, and Dayton & Knight are looking at the ramifications of on-site sewage treatment and disposal, which is part of a major environmental-review process. A draft report is expected by VANOC from the firm shortly as well. And not everything has gone smoothly in this preparation process, either. For instance, the contour mapping that was done last fall had to be redone early this year because it wasn't done with sufficient detail.
BUREAUCRACIES: The environmental studies are being used for the baseline information that will be needed for the provincial government's formal Environmental Assessment application, and that'll be underway until the end of July this year. It will also be used for various VANOC internal reporting to the IOC.
The B.C. Environmental Assessment process is expected to generally satisfy the federal government's environmental assessment requirements, which also covers aspects of VANOC's venues. A provincial EA certificate is required by the designers before the project can be built, and the federal environmental aspect needs to be completed before the federal portion of the funding for the venue can be released. The B.C. process include environmental assessments of social, economic, health and heritage aspects of the venue.
In addition, the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District will also go through a rezoning process to allow the area where the facilities are to be built to become a commercial zone.
BACK TO THE FUTURE: VANOC is not just building the centre for the Games alone. A major part of its over-all goals, and that of the IOC, is to figure out an ongoing use for the facilities which, in VANOC's terms, are known as 'legacy' aspects. It also calls it "a major challenge" for designers.
That means the entire design and concept has to be based on what would make commercial sense to a large degree, although an endowment fund is planned -- assuming there's enough money left over after mounting the Games to do so -- to help subsidize the legacy uses. Here's how, in part, VANOC specifies the concept: "The goal is to make the site a world-class destination for all the Nordic sports, and to maximize year-round use of compatible outdoor recreational sporting activities..."
The provincial government is in the process now of developing a long-term plan for the Callaghan Valley in conjunction with the development of a Nordic Centre business plan.
The legacy uses are to include opportunities for Nordic sport development at the Centre itself and be able to deal with, and compete for, regional, provincial, national and international competitions. At a minimum, VANOC expects the facility to be able to host World Cup events, and in the non-winter seasons, to be able to encourage "training opportunities" such as mountain-biking, mountaineering and snowless ski-jumping.
The Centre is to include athlete and recreational support facilities, along with various temporary and permanent facilities. These include a Nordic day lodge, sport operations areas and a maintenance facility, and some of these might be in separate buildings.
The requirements for the design of the Centre, besides the buildings and its support facilities, also includes construction of trails for the skiing and biathlon events, as well as some recreational trails. The detailed design is to include 65K, 90K and 120K ski jumps, along with the space provisions of development jumps.
SPORTS CONSULTING: International sports federations covering the various events at the WNC have also given their approvals for the preliminary venue design and the conceptual design for the things that affect their sports and the recreational trails related to them, in order to come up with the documents given to the short list of firms interested in the project. And quite a few sports technical consultants have been hired by VANOC to oversee both the preliminary plans and review the on-going development of the WNC's plans.
VANOC hired John Aalberg and Don Gardner, both world-famous experts in their industry, to determine the ski-trail course layout for competition as well as for recreation. They did much of their on-site work from camps set up during a week last April. The design elements from the course layouts to the stadium layouts have been, and will be, technically reviewed by Jurg Capol, the International Ski Federation (FIS) race director and Uri Wehling, the FIS Nordic Combined race director. Also involved in reviewing plans will be Georgia Manhard, Cross-Country Canada's representative (and said to be the driving force of the WNC since its inception), and John Heiling, the Canadian representative for the Nordic Combined sports organization. Torgeir Nordby has been hired by VANOC to do technical designs reviews of the ski jump hills and its facilities, and all the ski-jump facility design elements will be reviewed by FIS ski-jumping race director Walter Hofer.
The International Biathlon Committee's vice-president of sport, Vladimir Smirnov and Norbert Bailer, the chair of the IBU technical committee will also be involved in the review of designs, and Biathlon Canada will have Ray Kokkonen, who worked on the Biathlon venue during the Bid phase.
TV OR NOT TV: VANOC will also be paying extremely close attention to media requirements, particularly those for TV broadcasting, since they pay for such a large portion of the Games.
For instance, it will be keenly interested in the plans the WNC design firm creates for the locations and sight-lines of TV cameras along the various jumps and runs. The idea is to get maximum coverage for a minimum number of cameras that satisfies the requirements of the IOC, and the various broadcast crews, such as those of NBC, Europe, Canada and Asia -- and still keep the number of trees to be cut and other environmental damage to a minimum.
Camera positions will have to be in the master site plan, along with the underground conduits required for their power and communications cabling.
TV signals will be relayed from the WNC to satellite, and much of it will be processed by the Broadcast Centre venue VANOC will be building in the Vancouver suburb of Richmond. But the designers will also have to account for on-site communications and broadcasting, such as that required for scoreboards, timing systems, multi-media, paging, radio, info-messaging (such as cell-phone text messaging), signage, and whatever else technology will come up with by the time 2010 rolls around.
PREP WORK TO DO: In order to prepare the area for construction to start next spring, tree clearing and harvesting is to begin this fall. It's already been settled which company will be doing the harvesting: Western Forest Products owns the tree licenses in the area, and it will be doing the work, starting in mid September and finishing by the end of October this year.
The specific areas to be cleared will have to be known by then to give the company sufficient time to do the work, but the general areas are already known: besides the hills and location for the WNC and its companion Sliding Centre and the accompany parking lots and trails, WFP will also be clearing the areas alongside the access road so that power and communication lines can be constructed.
POWER: There are two parts to the electrical requirements of the WNC and the Sliding Centre: permanent and temporary. The temporary aspects involve the power facilities that will be needed during construction, and the permanent aspects will be for both the Olympic overlay and the legacy aspects.
The construction load, VANOC estimates, will be no more than one million volt amps (MVA). The permanent load is estimated to be no more than three MVA.
B.C. Hydro, the province's electrical utility, will construct a new high-voltage substation on the south end of Whistler near Function Junction in the next two or three years. Electrical loads will then be redistributed between Whistler and the new substation. The power lines from the new substation will go south along Highway 99 on the existing 25-thousand-volt pole lines that terminate near Daisy Lodge. A new 25KV line, to carry electrical and communication cables, will then be built along the new access road; they're to be installed by the fall of 2005. Construction power should be on site from then to the middle of 2007, but they'll only have a third of the lines energized. Full power will be turned on in the summer of 2007. VANOC says it expects to tender the work for the new 25KV line.
SECURITY: Some of the security aspects for the facility -- and the kind that can be expected at other venues -- is also taking shape. The RCMP will manage the security aspects, working with VANOC supervision and co-operation, and the RCMP will provide security details to the design contractor as the planning proceeds.
Each Olympic venue will be protected by a "secure perimeter." All operational and support functions for the facilities are to be included within the perimeter.
The visible part of the perimeter will be comprised of temporary fencing during construction and as part of the Olympic overlay, and also permanent fencing. There will be infra-red sensors, motion detectors, security cameras or closed-circuit TV, as well as security personnel monitoring the areas inside the perimeter. The on-site security force is expected to involve the military, RCMP and local police (depending on the venue's location), as well as paid civilian security personnel and voluntary personnel. Once a venue has been enclosed, a "search-and-secure function [will be] performed by law enforcement. Access [will be] allowed only to personnel and vehicles that have passed the security clearance."
MORE TO DO: The major task of the company that is awarded the WNC contract is to provide a Project Definition Report quickly, with the design work to be done in stages and provide to VANOC in presentations as the benchmarks are cleared, with the first part of the report to be turned in within three months of being awarded the contract.
There are several things that VANOC will do on its own as the Nordic Centre is being designed and built. For instance, it will be managing the transportation plans for all Game-related aspects, such as moving athletes and their coaches and trainers between venues and the athlete villages.
And, by the way, the C$61 million cost of the Centre does not include the federal government's 7% Goods and Services Tax -- that's a permitted extra.
BACKGROUND =
Here's the budget breakout for the Centre, which was done in 2002 dollars. The proponents are to provide their estimates of their costs in 2005 dollars.
- General site engineering: C$20 million
- Ski Jump venue: C$22.8 million
- Site master plan, the Cross-Country venue and the Biathlon venue: C$15.2 million
- Contingency: C$3 million
- Total: C$61 million, plus C$4 million GST (net): C$65 million.
--
No time to waste: here is the WNC design timeline required by VANOC:
- July 2004 - Design contract award
- Sept 1, 2004 - Trees to be harvested must be identified.
- Oct 1, 2004 - Complete the Project Definition Report
- Oct 15, 2004 - 25% of the design must be completed
- Nov 30, 2004 - 50% of the design must be completed
- Jan 15, 2005 - 75% of the design must be completed
- Mar 1, 2005 - Completion of design
- March 30, 2005 - Issue construction contract tenders
- May 1, 2005 - Construction starts
--
Here's the road construction schedule for the Nordic Centre:
- September to October, 2004 - Trees to be harvested on the right-of-way
- March 2005 - Design of road to be completed
- April 2005 - Start construction of gravel road
- October 2007 - Complete construction of gravel road
- Summer 2008 or 2009: pave the main access road.
--
Once the project is awarded to the design engineer, here's the major To-Do list, which all has to be accomplished by next March:
- Project scoping
- a project definition report
- a project grid system
- site layout and co-ordination
- site clearing and grubbing
- site stripping and preparation
- earthworks and grading
- electrical (temporary and permanent)
- mechanical (temporary and permanent)
- storm-water movement
- rock removal and aggregate processing
- sanitary systems treatment and disposal
- water systems treatment and distribution
- maintenance compound and facilities
- fuel system and distribution
- co-ordinate with VANOC consultants (on geo-technical
- survey and mapping
- hydrological and environmental)
- co-ordinate with other workers (the B.C. Government's Ministry of Transport
- which is building the road into the Callaghan Valley
- other winners of additional RFPs for other parts of the work)
- cost estimating
- drawings and specifications
--
Long term uses or requirements proposed for the WNC:
- Must be "commercially sustainable"
- World cup sporting events
- National luge events
- Biking
- Camping
- Backcountry hiking
- Training
- Summer jumping
- Bird watching by groups
- Nature walks by groups
--
The Nordic Centre is VANOC's RFP 501; there are some related RFPs: 502 is for the ski jumps, and 503 is for the site master plan and the lead consultant.
--
Previous Morgan:News:2010 stories on the LEED controversy:
- 'C$200,000 of forestry funding to be available for 2010 design, construction expertise'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:361:Published:6/8/2004]
- '(Feature) Italian Winter Games CEO flags sponsorship, construction, environment for focus'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:220:Published:3/29/2004]
- 'LEED standard for 2010 venue construction poses headaches for forestry, plastics'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:202:Published:3/19/2004]
--
Interesting factoid: Part of the studies for the Callaghan area provided to the design contractor: pages and pages that contain years of detailed weather data -- temperatures, rainfall, snowfalls, winds...
Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on June 28, 2004
Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #407
TWO-WEEK CRUISE TO 2010 GAMES ON HISTORICAL FERRY OFFERED AS AUCTION PRIZE
The Kalakala Alliance Foundation of Port Angeles, Washington State, opens bidding today in an E-Bay auction to sell the film and story rights to the 1935 art-deco ferry Kalakala. And part of the prize of winning the bid is an extended visit on the ferry to Vancouver during the 2010 Olympics.
A minimum US$500,000 bid is required to acquire the rights. "The winning bidder will also to receive a two-week cruise vacation on board the Kalakala while [enjoying] the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver B.C. with the privilege of full use of all Kalakala’s space,,," according to the organization's website.
The Kalakala ran between Port Angeles and Victoria in the late 1950s.
The highest bidder is also offered 40% ownership of film, video, music, documentary and book rights.
RESOURCES
Kalakala Alliance Foundation website (scroll down for pictures of the ship):
http://www.kalakala.org/
Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on June 28, 2004
