Most city neighborhoods evolve organically over time, the slow accretion of buildings, shops, traditions and quirks. Not Vancouver’s Olympic Village. The ready-made ‘hood spanning eight city blocks was built practically overnight to house thousands of athletes for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. After the competitors went home, it was transformed into the city’s newest residential district. Though Olympic Village was slow to fill up, and remains a source of controversy in Vancouver, the neighborhood is beginning to come into its own. I wrote about Vancouver’s newest destination in a recent article for The New York Times.
An Olympic Village in Vancouver is Reborn
By Remy Scalza; Special to The New York Times
DURING the Olympic Games in Vancouver last February, about 3,000 athletes and officials spent their downtime holed up in the Olympic Village. Filling eight city blocks, with 25 residential high-rises and mixed-use buildings, the $1.1 billion pop-up neighborhood was built on a desolate stretch of industrial land along the city’s waterfront. After the athletes left, the sprawling complex — nearly 1,100 units in total — was reinvented as Vancouver’s newest residential district. That transformation has, in turn, accelerated the emergence of the area around the complex as a destination unto itself.
Click here to read the full article on The New York Times website.
