The site of the athletes’ village for the 2011 Pan American Games will be at El Bajio in Zapopan, close to the intersection of the Periferico and Avenida Vallarta on the western outskirts of the city and next to the new Guadalajara Chivas soccer stadium.
Construction is due to start on December 7, around five weeks later than originally proposed.
The village’s design will be a contemporary European style, with two polygons and two towers looking over the Primavera Forest.
Mario Vazquez Raña, president of the Pan American Sports Organization, declared himself satisfied with the advances made, especially the 50 million dollars the Jalisco state government has put up as a guarantee to build the village, but issued a stern warning: “I believe that the only thing we have to fight for is that everything goes ahead as we have planned. If we stray from that path, who knows what could happen.”
The future of the Guadalajara games was cast into doubt in September after plans to build the athletes’ village in a run-down part of downtown Guadalajara were scrapped due to political friction over financing.
If all goes to plan, the village should be finished by July 2011, three months before the start of the games. The cost will be approximately one billion pesos.
The steel-structured complex will house 8,400 people during the games, distributed between 2,500 apartments, which will later be sold.
Grupo Corey, which owns the land and is the national leader in steel structures, will build the athletes’ village. The state government will oversee construction.
There have been grumblings about the choice of location, especially due to traffic concerns.
Reports say that traffic is already heavy due to the many educational institutions in the area. Currently, access to the land where the athletes’ village is to be built is by dirt track and just about fits two cars. The Vallarta exit of the Periferico is the only obvious way into the city.
The Zapopan municipal government is fighting a war of words with Chivas soccer club owner Jorge Vergara over whether or not the new stadium can be opened without new access roads. The athletes’ village will only intensify the problem, but also leaves an opportunity for the two to work hand-in-hand to find a solution.
El Bajio is also a refill zone to the aquifer at Los Colomos, something the athletes’ village development could disrupt, a Universidad de Guadalajara expert told local newspaper Publico.
Even as the site of the village in El Bajio was being announced, Vazquez Raña couldn’t help taking a swipe at former Guadalajara Mayor Alfonso Petersen, whose ambitious project to build the village in the Morelos Park on the Calzada Independencia floundered amid the credit crunch and opposition from local residents, politicians businesses.
“He was very fatuous about the center,” said Vazquez Raña, who served as president of Mexico’s Olympic Committee from 1974 to 2001 and is president and director general of the Organizacion Editorial Mexicana, the largest newspaper company in Latin America. “Until he realized we had to make the change.”
Vazquez Raña also said the 400 million pesos that Guadalajara city hall lost in the Morelos Park project was not his problem. “I want to tell you that we never took (the Parque Morelos project) seriously,” he told reporters in Guadalajara this week.
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