DC to Build Many Olympic Venues Despite Loss

WASHINGTON, DC-The metropolitan Washington region will not play host to the 2012 Summer Olympics, but officials plan to move forward with as many of the 10 new venues proposed for development as part of the area’s bid. Of those 10 facilities, five would have been temporary structures, but plans to construct the remaining five permanent stadiums and arenas and sports locales will not disappear with the city’s loss.

All in all, Washington outlined 33 sites–23 of which already exist–in the District, Maryland and Virginia to host the variety of games that would have taken place. Those undeveloped venues that remain a possibility include an 85,000-seat stadium and an arena at what would have been the Olympic Sports Complex at the current site of RFK Stadium, an 18,000-sf arena and a 5,500-sf velodrome in Baltimore and a 5,000-sf aquatic center in Arlington.