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Toronto 2015 Pan American Games

My wife and I yesterday were discussing the possibility of renting out our place for the duration of these games and then us staying at her dad's place in Mississauga.

For rent:

2 Storey Loft Townhome in Liberty Village, 1 Bdrm + Den, 1 1/2 Baths, Open Concept Liv/Din Room. Fridge, Dishwasher & Microwave Oven/Rangehood, Stove/Oven, Washer/Dryer, Patio with BBQ, Parking, Internet, Cable.

LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION!!!!!
Steps To Lake, Exhibition and Ontario place, BMO Field, Gardiner/QEW, TTC Street Car and Bus Route, Restaurants, 24Hrs. Metro, LCBO and so much more!
Also close to The ACC and The Rogers Centre.

How much do you think someone would be willing to pay?

$5,000 - 10,000?

KACHING!!!!!

:D
 
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@ AgentOrange: That actually sounds like a great idea. :D
I dunno if someone would be willing to pay 5k for 2 weeks, but I guess you could always try. The location sounds like it could be a real grabber though, so maybe 5k is reasonable.

I don't really understand what's not to like about this. It's gonna mean the feds finally get some funding into the city, and we could get some transit projects fastracked. It'll also get a bunch of international attention on the city. Hopefully they introduce it as "the Greater Golden Horseshoe, home to over 8 million people and one of the fastest growing areas in North America." :p

Just wondering, I heard something about Markham hosting some soccer events. Does anyone know if that's true, and if it is what exactly it'll be?
 
AgentOrange said:
How much do you think someone would be willing to pay?

$5,000 - 10,000?
Click to expand...

Umm. Maybe $1300 for the whole month... about the same you might be able to get for rent because this isn't the Olympics. Hoards of people will not be coming. Even the Pan Am video promoting Toronto as host shows parents seeing their kids off at the airport. :)
 
EnviroTO said:
Umm. Maybe $1300 for the whole month... about the same you might be able to get for rent because this isn't the Olympics. Hoards of people will not be coming. Even the Pan Am video promoting Toronto as host shows parents seeing their kids off at the airport. :)
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ya I don't think the event will be as much stress on our hotels as the Olympics tend to be with many cities, so it would be very difficult to get a lot of money out of it. Maybe you could stretch it to $2000-3000 because $100/day is pretty cheap for a full service room. I guess you never know until you try.
 
jn_12 said:
Whoaccio - There are other benefits that are even more significant than tickets and sponsorships. For hotels, restaurants, shops etc. the hundreds of thousands expected visitors are going to have a huge impact. They're going to come here and spend money on hotel rooms and dinners and souvenirs and that's going to generate a lot of tax dollars. If the expected 250,000 visitors spend a conservative $1k each, that would have a pretty significant impact in a short time, no? Rio apparently had 700,000 visitors. Even half of that could be wonderful.
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The only figure I've seen was the 250k visitors in a CNWNewswire bit a few weeks ago. What confuses me about that figure is that it specified 250k visitors to "attend PanAm games," which to me implies they may already live in the region. Assuming that all PanAm spectators were tourists that would only imply a spike of 0.8% over typical tourism levels, and that also assumes that all trips were spontaneous and not simply intended trips being shifted forwards or backwards.

Even if they were all tourists and all of them spent 1k, I still don't see where the benefit is. The operational costs of this thing are going to be in the vicinity of 700-750 million dollars. Even if we do spur 250m of activity, the math is pretty bad. Spending three dollars to get one back, roughly.

jn_12 said:
I'm going to be honest, I don't think a 10,000 seat pool makes tons of sense long term, but I'd like to see how it will be configured before making a decision on it. If it can be adapted to a 5,000 seat venue then great. Some of these numbers aren't set in stone either. It's just a proposal and designs and numbers can and probably will change. Fact is, either way it has the potential of being a world class venue/training facility, and that's never a bad thing in my books.
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I'm sure the aquatics center would be a top flight facility and would be useful for athletics. That's not really my beef with this. My beef is the horribly roundabout way we are going about this. If UofT really needs a 170m dollar aquatics center, which I personally doubt, why not just build a 170m dollar aquatics center and not bother with all the operating costs of PanAm?
 
Whoaccio said:
The only figure I've seen was the 250k visitors in a CNWNewswire bit a few weeks ago. What confuses me about that figure is that it specified 250k visitors to "attend PanAm games," which to me implies they may already live in the region. Assuming that all PanAm spectators were tourists that would only imply a spike of 0.8% over typical tourism levels, and that also assumes that all trips were spontaneous and not simply intended trips being shifted forwards or backwards.

Even if they were all tourists and all of them spent 1k, I still don't see where the benefit is. The operational costs of this thing are going to be in the vicinity of 700-750 million dollars. Even if we do spur 250m of activity, the math is pretty bad. Spending three dollars to get one back, roughly.
Click to expand...

250,000 visitors has been posted pretty much everywhere. A quick google search of "toronto pan-am games 250,000 visitors" brings up 1150 results.
http://news.globaltv.com/sports/Toronto+wins+2015/2194160/story.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=aB2FBCwizYyo
etc...

It's not like those $250m simply disappear into an black hole. Tourism tends to generate a multiplier effect. For example, in New York City every dollar generated by the tourism sector generates $7 for the state economy. Here, studies by the Ontario Government have shown that every $1 million spent by visitors to Ontario creates roughly 14 jobs and generates $553,400 in wages and salaries in the province. So there's a lot of spin-off here. Plus, just because 250,000 people come during those couple weeks, doesn't mean it abruptly ends the day after the games end. Those people might go home and tell their friends and family how great Toronto was, which could result in more tourism. It's the way the tourism sector works and there's a lot more to it than simply looking at a single dollar figure and basing your judgement on that.
 
I don't see how anyone can deny that this will make a nice blip on the international radar for Toronto, a city whose tourism industry has been in rapid decline for years now. If this is expanded to include a substantial arts festival the potential for luring foreign visitors will be huge, and those visitors will likely want to travel to the falls or maybe Stratford and some other areas too while here and all the more so if the province and feds get involved to market globally a whole vacation-destination package. Could be a banner year and once people have been here they are likely to either come back or go home and tell everybody what a great time they had.

Also, what a boon to construction, development and the trades at this time! Lots of jobs will be created in all sectors to accommodate these events which will have enormous economic spin-off.

Lastly, if these games fast-track much-need investments in development and infrastructure where's the harm? Toronto has languished for decades, badly needing government funding. It's nice there is now some momentum and some impetus for spending. Bring it on!
 
I'm wondering if the games will mean that the Ontario Government will move up their plans to redevelop Ontario Place. Right now it's projected to be done for 2017, but the Sorbara Report didn't take into account the Pan-Ams, and I'm wondering if that could move things along a bit faster.
 
The BMX course will be a draw to Ontario Place so it would make sense to speed up existing plans to be ready for 2015.

I suspect that a lot of projects that were due to be complete by 2016 to 2020 will be fast tracked. The Queens Quay waterfront project will definitely be complete. The CN Tower base redevelopment is now guaranteed to go ahead, the SkyDome's exterior upgrades are a certainty as it will be the "face" of the games with its Opening & Closing ceremonies.

We're likely going to hear a lot of announcements in 2010 and see many shovels in the ground by that year or the next.
 
Whoaccio said:
My beef is the horribly roundabout way we are going about this. If UofT really needs a 170m dollar aquatics center, which I personally doubt, why not just build a 170m dollar aquatics center and not bother with all the operating costs of PanAm?
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I think the problem is we don't "just build" anything. During both of our Olympic bids we heard that this was a roundabout way of getting sporting/transportation/housing infrastructure.....and that we should divert the wasted Olympic money to social and infrastructure projects....how did that work out?

We not only didn't do that, we cancelled and delayed projects that were promised (whether we got the Olympics or not) as soon as we lost the bid(s).

Like it or not, events are spark plugs to do things we know need done regardless....I used the analogy before of redecorating the spare room at your house....you know it needs doing, you know you are going to do it "someday" but you don't do it until your wife tells you her mother is coming to stay for a "a couple of weeks". You may not enjoy the couple of weeks but after it is over you have a nicely decorated room!
 
MetroMan said:
Also of note, the PanAm games serve as qualifiers for many of the sports (all Olympic sports are represented in the PanAm games) to go on to Rio2016 the following year.... so you can expect the likes of Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps competing in Toronto 2015.
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I don't know how swimming works, but PanAms are not part of any formal qualifying in track and field. To qualify for World Championships or Olympic Games is all about hitting a time (or distance in the field events) standard within the qualifying window (subject to further criteria by each nation's governing body).

Past Pan Am games have not had the absolute best of the possible track and field athletes. Canada will probably be sending as many of their A team as possible since we'd be hosting, but don't expect the best of the USAnians (they'll be more focused on the biannual World Champs in 2015). Just look at the fields from Winnipeg in 1998.

There may be a scattering of the best of the other Pan Am countries participating, but I would be surprised if someone of Usain Bolt's calibre would compete. Possible, but not likely.
 
I am known on this forum as a culture queen, but I also know the value of athletics and sport. Landing these Pan Am Games is a real boon to us all. The various people who worked so hard to get this event in Toronto are to be thanked.

The word "legacy" is being used and it's a choice word indeed. The venues to be built will serve as first-rate training and practice facilities for athletes, and this is something the southern Ontario region has been lacking. There will be lasting benefits from these games.

To those who think the Pan Ams are an under-reach, I say that this is probably what it takes to land the summer Olympics in some future year. I consider it to be a practice run for the prestige event.

Well done!
 
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