How Olympic Park became trapped between sporting legacy and reinvention

Twenty years after the 'best Olympic Games ever',the 640-hectare precinct that played host is struggling to reinvent itself as a vibrant urban part of Sydney.

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Sydney Olympic Park from the air.

Sydney Olympic Park from the air.Tom Compagnoni

As the opening ceremony reached a climax,David Richmond watched with alarm as a ring of fire shuddered and stopped for several minutes. The showpiece had been rehearsed almost a dozen times in the days before the opening of the Sydney Olympics. Yet it was always going to be a high-risk act,before a global audience of more than 2 billion.

Minutes earlier,Cathy Freeman had set light to the ring of fire before it started the ascent to the cauldron at the top of the Olympic Stadium."The real fear was it wouldn't go any further. That would have done us some damage,"recalls Richmond,a key architect of the Sydney Games.

"Pop's City":Sydney Olympics mastermind David Richmond at Cathy Freeman Park.

"Pop's City":Sydney Olympics mastermind David Richmond at Cathy Freeman Park.Louise Kennerley

A decision during rehearsals saved Sydney from derision. Organisers hired two technical experts because they were unconvinced that it would work without a hitch."They were put in because we were very worried about it – we didn't know what was going to happen,"Richmond says."Their job was,whatever happens,to get the thing to the top – and that's what they did."

The entire event went on to be lauded as the"best Olympic Games ever". For their efforts,Richmond and other Games masterminds such as Olympics Minister Michael Knight later received high honours for pulling off the greatest show on Earth in the harbour city.

But on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Green Games,Sydney Olympic Park remains trapped between its legacy as a sporting and events precinct,and reinventing itself as a vibrant urban centre at the geographic heart of Sydney."There were a lot of missed opportunities in thinking sufficiently about what it would be after the Olympics,and creating a real city there. It has suffered to this day,"says John Mant,a doyen of Australian planning."It's a bit like what Canberra used to be – everything has its place and there are lots of trees covering everything but there’s no humanity or messiness."

20 years after 'the best games ever',Sydney Olympic Park remains largely deserted. VIDEO BY TOM COMPAGNONI AND MATT O'SULLIVAN.

A chief gripe is a sense of vast emptiness. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic,an absence of people on weekdays was striking. Now,a walk along Olympic Boulevard leaves you wondering where everyone disappeared to.

In a cafe on Australia Avenue at the centre of what his grandson dubs"Pop's city",Richmond roars with laughter when concerns about this emptiness are put to him."It's always going to be a bit of a hybrid because you've got the event capability;you've got the commercial facilities;you've got massive parkland. But it's not a shopping centre,"he replies."It's a place that will ebb and flow and it's been designed that way."

Richmond,a gregarious man who was known as"Mr Fix-it" during his time at the top of the NSW public service,faced a seemingly impossible task in 1995 when he became head of the authority charged with building the Olympic venues and facilities,and delivering the"legacy precinct".

Olympic Boulevard without any events is devoid of people.

Olympic Boulevard without any events is devoid of people.Janie Barrett

When he took the role,Sydney was at least two years behind work on the event venues. A firm decision about where exactly the Olympic Stadium was to be built had yet to be made,while a formal blueprint for the precinct had still to be agreed upon."There was great concern that we weren't even going to finish the facilities on time,"recalls Richmond,now 76."We had to move and we had to move very fast."

Over the following year,the Carr government made about 50 decisions – on matters ranging from a blueprint for the park to building a rail link – which were critical to both staging the Olympics and the area's development over future decades.

"We did get our spurs on. In fact,we finished all of the facilities that were promised in the'93 Olympic bid 12 months before[the Games began],"says Richmond,who went on to become the inaugural chairman of the Sydney Olympic Park Authority in 2001 for six years."Sydney not only delivered in 2000 a fabulous Olympics and Paralympics but we have delivered the best Olympic Park or set of Olympic facilities."

Two decades on,many are unconvinced that the precinct has lived up to expectations."My personal view is that there is still no'there',when you get there,"says David Chandler,a four-decade veteran of the construction industry who last year was appointed NSW Building Commissioner."Walk down Olympic Boulevard and you think you need another Olympic Games to fill it up with people – it is a long time between Olympic Games."

Like Richmond,Chandler has earned a reputation as a fix-it man for troubled projects. In the 1980s he was called on to sort out the troubled construction of Australia's Parliament House.

To urban designers,Olympic Park represents an inherent conflict between hosting a global 16-day event in 2000,and what the area should become afterwards. James Weirick,one of the biggest critics of plans for the precinct in the lead up to the Olympics,argues"deep-seated problems"remain today due to decisions dating to the 1980s."At the moment we have the worst of both worlds – neither a great sports park nor an area with an urban identity or character,"he says."The vast paved area in front of the stadium creates the emptiness of the place. It is so empty at times that energy leaks out."

Professor James Weirick was highly critical of plans for the Olympic precinct in the lead up to the 2000 Games.

Professor James Weirick was highly critical of plans for the Olympic precinct in the lead up to the 2000 Games.Louise Kennerley

Weirick,a professor in urban development and design at the University of NSW,says Sydney faces problems similar to most Olympic cities,apart from the likes of Munich. The German city was widely regarded as setting the gold standard last century in how to host the Games."Any city that has gone out and built things has rued the day,"says Weirick,who was a member of the Sydney Olympic Park Authority's design review panel for several years before resigning in protest over holdingV8 Supercar races there in the late 2000s.

"Every city that has put on the Olympic Games has faced problems of what to do afterwards,because of the inherent contradiction between having to put on a massive global event and what can possibly be of any use to a city afterwards. That is the problem we have got here – everything is too big;it's too spread out and not really supporting an intense,interesting urban life."

Sydney did avoid the path taken by other Olympic cities such as Athens and Rio de Janeiro,which spent billions only to end up with a number of venues that became white elephants. While the total cost of the Sydney Games hit $6.48 billion,a report by the Olympic Coordination Authority estimated the cost to the state budget of hosting the event at $1.326 billion – a figure the NSW Auditor-General later accepted as afair estimate. The Auditor-General did,however,note that measuring the true bill was"not simple"because of the difficulty deciding what to include. It is certainly more difficult to calculate whether the Games lived up to forecasts in a 1993 KPMG report that they would boost the national economy by $7.3 billion.

The softball stadium for the Athens Olympics has largely been abandoned since 2004.

The softball stadium for the Athens Olympics has largely been abandoned since 2004.Getty Images

Weirick apportions blame for Olympic Park’s inherent problems to government decisions in the 1980s,which were to become central to determining its evolution. One of those was the Wran government's joint development with construction giant Lendlease of the Australia Centre – a low-rise,high-tech business park covering more than five hectares now referred to as the"town centre". Weirick argues that what was spruiked at the time as Sydney's answer to Silicon Valley has come to sterilise the heart of Olympic Park,sapping it of energy.

The other mistake,he says,was the Greiner government's sale in the late 1980s of more than 43 hectares of waterfront land at Homebush Bay for less than $40 million. That land has since formed part of the fast-growing suburb of Wentworth Point. As a consequence,Wentworth Point's surge in residential development means it has out-competed Olympic Park.

Yet even critics of Olympic Park's evolution readily highlight the Games'valuable legacies. Top of the list are its parklands,the jewels in the crown covering 430 hectares. They help draw more than 10 million people every year to Olympic Park. Similarly,the solar-powered suburb of Newington near the western fringe,which was born out of the Athletes Village,earns praise two decades on for its cutting-edge environmental systems.

The Olympics also fast-tracked one of the largest clean-ups of toxic land in any Australian city. More than 9 million cubic metres of waste and contaminated soils over 400 hectares near Homebush Bay was remediated,some of which was piled in large mounds,capped and landscaped."It was a huge job and there was a big rush,"says Dr Bill Ryall,who worked as an Environment Protection Authority-accredited auditor for several years in the late'90s on the Olympic site."It was one of Sydney's largest tips. It was mostly industrial waste from workshops."

And in the lead up to the Games,one of the biggest fears was that the city's train and bus system would fail. As it turned out,the management of the transport system became one of its triumphs. Yet like the opening ceremony,the smooth running of the trains was only a derailment or mechanical failure away from transport chaos."We were always on tenterhooks. One serious incident could have brought everything to a screaming halt,"recalls former CityRail general manager Dick Day,whose team was responsible for designing the rail timetable for the Olympics.

Bedlam almost struck one night towards the end of the Games. Shortly before spectators piled out of the stadium,a train derailed nearby at Flemington,blocking the line to Olympic Station."It was as 100,000 people were thinking of getting home,"Day recalls."If we had lost our trains at that moment we would never have heard the end of it."

Rail staff worked quickly to remove the derailed train,freeing the line for other trains to pick up crowds at the station."Everyone was on their toes and did exactly what they should,"Day says.

The loop line worked a treat for the Olympics and has for other major events since. But architect and City of Sydney councillor Philip Thalis says the loop line is not the long-term solution for a precinct whose transport links have been its Achilles heel due to its location on a peninsula."It's great for events but it just doesn't work as a daily service,"he says."Transport is its huge limitation and it hasn't been able to be solved in any comprehensive way."

Thalis,a member of the master plan team for the Olympic site in the lead up to the Games,says the Olympic Boulevard has also been a"real disappointment because it's basically empty". He does,however,add that great streets and cities take centuries to evolve. Like London's Pall Mall and Berlin’s Unter den Linden – translated to"under the linden trees"– the Olympic Boulevard was designed to be a generous 60 metres in width."It lacks enough frontage. To define a great street,what you need to do is generate activity on a daily basis and during events,and it simply has lacked that activity to date,"Thalis says."They trumpeted at the time in the mid-90s that no other city in the world would ever put so many Olympic facilities in one place. Well,there's a good reason they didn't."

Former Labor minister David Borger says poor transport links have held the area back.

Former Labor minister David Borger says poor transport links have held the area back.Wolter Peeters

David Borger,a former Labor minister who is now the Sydney Business Chamber’s western Sydney director,agrees that poor transport access has held the area back. For a start,he says its internal winding road layout would have been built"very differently"today.

"There were road design concepts that were in vogue 25 years ago that are not in vogue now,"he says."Trying to create more of a traditional grid system would provide better access and having short,walkable blocks towards the core would make it more interesting. Everything comes back to transport and place making. It needs a bit of grunge."

While people flock to the parklands,the 640-hectare precinct has been struggling to attract businesses for a number of years. Commonwealth Bank's decision several years ago to progressively relocate thousands of staff from Olympic Park dealt it a major blow. And like elsewhere in the city,the COVID-19 pandemic this year has worsened the plight of businesses. Yet even before it struck,Olympic Park often seemed deserted on weekdays without events to attract crowds."No one really wants to come here,unless you are here for an event or work. If there is nothing on,it is a ghost town,"says Nick Glynatsis,the owner of Mexica Cocktail Bar near the vacated CBA offices."Trying to fill the gaps where there is nothing on is hard."

He pins much of the blame on transport."A lot of people don't like working here because of the transport situation. It is inconvenient to get to. The train takes longer because there is no direct route – you have to go via Lidcombe."

And two decades after the Games,the bar owner believes the precinct has failed to realise its potential."There are a lot of other areas that are growing in Sydney. It is like a forgotten little pocket now,"he says."They have always got a vision for a future that keeps getting pushed back."

Bar owner Nick Glynatsis says Olympic Park resembled a ghost town even before COVID-19 when events were not on.

Bar owner Nick Glynatsis says Olympic Park resembled a ghost town even before COVID-19 when events were not on.Wolter Peeters

In Melbourne before coronavirus,the MCG and nearby tennis centre formed an active part of the CBD,allowing event goers to easily visit bars and restaurants after events. At Olympic Park,most people attending events have been more likely to jump straight into their cars or catch trains elsewhere.

"It was a great two weeks but it was two weeks a long time ago,"says Paul Walker,a former GPT executive who oversaw the company's $360 million in commercial property at Olympic Park."Calling it Sydney Olympic Park is holding it back. It makes it an events place – not a place to live and work. The fact that the stadiums are there is a bonus but they should be peripheral to making a great piece of city. Businesses can't be sustained on event-day customers alone."

Fewer than 20 kilometres from Olympic Park,a fading blue line dissects a road at an entrance to Centennial Park,before disappearing below new layers of bitumen. It is one of the last vestiges of the light blue line that guided marathon runners around Sydney to the finish at Olympic Park on October 1,2000. Twenty years later,the precinct that hosted the Games is in need of a new path to weave it into the urban fabric of Australia's largest city.

Read the Best Games ever series here

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Matt O'Sullivan is transport and infrastructure editor at The Sydney Morning Herald.

Tom Compagnoni is the Head of Creative Video for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

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