2002 venues face changes

BEAR HOLLOW, Summit County — Five years later, Utah Olympic Park still attracts athletes and tourists eager to experience the same ski jumps, bobsled track and training facilities used during the 2002 Winter Games.

On a recent sunny afternoon, members of Great Britain's bobsled team gathered outside the park's day lodge to discuss that day's training runs. Meanwhile, a group of tourists are headed over to the ski jumps, where a local club of young athletes are practicing.

"We're pretty excited about what has happened since the Olympic Games in 2002," said Colin Hilton, president and chief executive officer of the Utah Athletic Foundation, which oversees both the park and the Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns.

Usage is up at both Olympic facilities, Hilton said, and the amount of money the park and oval lose annually is down. But, because they continue to operate in the red, there could be major changes made at both facilities before the next anniversary of the Salt Lake Games.

Billions of people around the world tuned in to the Feb. 8, 2002, Opening Ceremonies of the Salt Lake Olympics at the University of Utah's Rice-Eccles Stadium, where typically only a few people mingle among the exhibits at the Olympic Cauldron Park.

Instead of memories, the state's post-Olympic attention — and money — was largely shifted to major sports facilities meant to serve everyone from gold-medal winners to would-be athletes.

Both facilities are owned and operated by the foundation, a private organization created by the Legislature with a $75 million endowment of Olympic profits from the Salt Lake Organizing Committee that has grown to nearly $86 million.

The annual operating losses are now about about $3.5 million, about $500,000 less than the endowment is expected to earn each year. Hilton said while that's good news, his goal is to get costs down even more so there's enough money available for capital improvements.

"It's managing how much we lose," Hilton said of running the state-built facilities that were turned over to the foundation after the Olympics. "No one in their right mind believes these facilities can be run to make money or break even."

Reducing losses, though, means cutting costs or increasing earnings.

For the sports park, that might mean a new hotel thanks to a resolution passed by the 2007 Legislature allowing a limited amount of the park's land to be sold to a private developer with government approval.