Friday, February 12, 2010

Olympic Village on Tech

Home to one of the most environmentally conscious places in the world, Vancouver has also gone to great lengths to make a "green" village, with low-flow toilets, compostable dinnerware and ubiquitous recycling.

Green, however, does not mean that 2010 Winter Games athletes will be deprived of luxury. Quite the contrary.

Sheets are 240-thread count, beds are plush and bathroom fixtures are worthy of a boutique hotel. The buildings are sleek metal and glass construction, in keeping with contemporary architecture popular in the Pacific Northwest.

Ah, and then there are the great views of Vancouver and its snow-capped Canadian mountains in the distance.

"It's awesome," chimed simultaneously Monique and Jocelyne Lamoureux, 20-year-old twin sisters on the U.S. Women's hockey team, blessed with views from their bright, seventh-floor apartment.

"There are two girls on our team who are in their fourth Olympics and they say this is the best set-up, by far," said Monique. "So, we are in for a treat."

The treat, however, comes at a cost to Vancouverites.

The village, which will mostly be sold as high-end housing, was one of the biggest controversies in the preparations for the Games.

The city was forced take over financing of the C$1 billion project in 2008 when lenders froze funding to the private developer in the economic downturn.

A second athletes village up in the high-mountain Whistler resort, which will be turned into mostly affordable housing, suffered no financial setbacks.


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