WinterSports2002.com, Friday, May 03, 2002

Games reap big profits for Salt Lake

By Lisa Riley Roche and Brady Snyder
Deseret News staff writers

Salt Lake City ended up with a net gain of nearly $3.6 million from the 2002 Winter Games despite cost overruns at the Washington Square celebration site, according to a new report scheduled to be released this afternoon.

"We came out remarkably well," Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson said.

The city spent $10.7 million on the Games. Of that, almost $6.3 million was covered by "Olympic Operations" revenues from organizations like the Salt Lake Organizing Committee and the Utah Olympic Public Safety Command. Another $4.4 million was covered by the city's general fund.

After the Games, the report noted that the city's general-fund investment was more than offset by $8 million in non-budgeted revenues — such as repayment by SLOC of sales tax used to build winter sports facilities — resulting in the bottom-line profit of nearly $3.6 million.

Despite the bottom-line profit, the report says the city did post an overrun of $217,000 in its Olympic operations budget.

The budget overrun was blamed on two things — "a substantial overestimation of volunteer hours" available for the sparsely attended events held at Washington Square that required the use of city employees, and also a shortfall in some revenue categories.

The city's accounting comes after the once financially troubled Salt Lake Organizing Committee announced a $56 million surplus in the $1.3 billion budget for the Games.

City Council chairman Dave Buhler said he was pleased with the Olympic profit.

"The good news is that we did make money," he said. "But we didn't do the Olympics to make money. We did the Olympics because it was great."

In hindsight, Buhler said, the City Council and Anderson probably made a mistake by developing a festival at Washington Square. "We probably could have spent less money on Washington Square."

The city should have had its celebration at Gallivan Plaza, instead of leasing that land to Anheuser Busch. With a locale closer to downtown, like Gallivan, Buhler said the city likely would've drawn more interest than it did at Washington Square, which surrounds the City-County Building.

"Washington Square was really not as successful as we had hoped," he said. "In hindsight, we could have done things differently."

City Councilman Eric Jergensen agreed. "In hindsight, it could have been advertised better," he said.

Jergensen said the city earned publicity and jobs not reflected in the accounting. "We came out OK," he said.

Councilwoman Nancy Saxton, who was in Los Angeles with several other council members to examine transportation facilities there, said projects like the festival are "always a gamble."

Saxton, who had not yet seen the financial report, said she was disappointed with the way the Washington Square project turned out "because we either didn't fill a niche or we didn't fill it as we should have."

Anderson had fought to obtain special liquor licenses for the site, but that wasn't enough to lure spectators from other downtown sites, including the medals plaza near the Delta Center.

The mayor today defended Washington Square, calling it good for the community.

"As the Games went on, it became a very popular spot," he said. "What we provided here at Washington Square was very unique."

Sales of food and merchandise at Washington Square were about $439,000, a small portion of the more than $10.7 million for the Games. Anderson said he didn't know if the food sales were under what the city expected.

Despite some mistakes, the city now has nearly $8 million in one-time money from the Games. More than half of that money is the city's share of the $59 million in sales taxes repaid by SLOC.

The repayment was required under the terms of the deal Olympic organizers made with the state years ago to buy the ski jumps, bobsled track and speedskating oval built with state and local sales taxes.

Ultimately it will be up to the council to decide how that extra Olympic money is spent.

While Anderson will certainly give suggestions, Buhler said the development of Library Square is a priority where the city could use the one-time money.

"We're interested to see what the mayor proposes," he said. "But we like to spend one-time money on one-time things."

E-MAIL: lisa@desnews.com; bsnyder@desnews.com

© 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company