If Boston had hosted the 2024 Olympics, these were the proposed venues. What has happened there since? - The Boston Globe (2024)

The bid to bring the Summer Olympics to Boston in 2024 fell apart nine years ago, after then-Boston Mayor Marty Walsh decided he would not put taxpayers on the hook for costs if the organizing committee ran out of money.

Led by area developer John Fish and Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca along with architect Dave Manfredi, the Boston 2024 push was met with sharp rebuke from those who worried about the long-term ramifications of an expensive global event descending on the region.

Here’s a look at the proposals organizers made as they pushed for support in 2015, and what has happened with the locations in the nine years since.

Beach volleyball on Boston Common

Organizers initially suggested a beach volleyball stadium on Boston Common, just steps from the historic bandstand. It was a key plank of Boston 2024′s pitch to offer a more compact, even walkable, Games that would draw on existing city facilities, or as the original bid document put it, “deliver our most precious physical assets to the Games.”

But the idea proved a lightning rod, with residents calling the nation’s oldest public park “sacred ground” and sharply rebuking the plan, which would have required organizers to cut down some of the Common’s mature oak trees to make way for the 16,000-seat temporary stadium.

A revised bid moved beach volleyball to Squantum Point Park in Quincy, where spectators would arrive by shuttle bus from the North Quincy Red Line station or by water ferry.

What became of the original site? Boston residents may soon be able to play pickleball there. A master plan for Boston Common is in the planning stages would transform the athletic fields into a multiuse space that includes a soccer pitch and pickleball courts.

And over in Paris, beach volleyball is taking center stage in front of the city’s most iconic structure — the Eiffel Tower.

Main stadium at Widett Circle

No Olympics is complete without a centerpiece venue — the Olympic Stadium. Cities aren’t required to build new, but in 2015, Boston didn’t have a large enough space to host the opening ceremony. Fenway Park’s 37,000-person capacity (at least for concerts) wouldn’t cut it, and let’s be real, Foxborough is not Boston.

But organizers had an idea: What if there was a way to build a new stadium while also stitching together two of Boston’s most venerable neighborhoods — and minimizing the long-term impact by making it temporary?

What about all that industrial space down at Widett Circle?

Widett Circle lies between South Boston and the South End, along Route 93. For decades, it has sat underused and underdeveloped as an industrial park and meat-packing and food distribution hub.

But organizers had a vision for a space the city has long wanted to maximize. What if a massive temporary venue were built to host the opening ceremony and track and field, among other Olympic events, and then, over the course of the next decade, was redeveloped? Plans called for housing, retail, and green space. Even a new neighborhood name was proposed: Midtown.

In the years since, the location has been floated as a site for a Revolution stadium (the Krafts are now pushing to build a venue in Everett, near the Encore casino). The most ambitious projects have called for building expensive decks over railroad tracks for mixed-use space on top. At one point, Amazon was interested in a massive distribution center on the site.

But in 2023, nearly eight years after the Boston Olympic bid fell apart, a decision finally was made about Widett Circle’s future. It would become a railyard, well-positioned to alleviate train-switching issues at South Station a mile away.

Olympic village in Dorchester

The former home of the Bayside Expo Center near the UMass Boston campus — and its prime real estate in front of Boston Harbor — had been underdeveloped for years as the Boston Olympic bid was being sorted out.

The Expo Center had closed in 2010 (and its roof would cave in after record snow totals in the winter of 2015). But the space had potential. Olympic organizers had a vision: What if they took the 36 acres at Columbia Point and developed it into the athletes’ village?

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The International Olympic Committee requires host cities to find enough lodging for thousands of athletes, coaches, and staff members. Most cities use existing dormitories or build housing and convert it later on. That was the plan for Boston, with post-Games plans including 2,700 new beds for UMass Boston students, 3,000 housing units, and retail, restaurant, and community spaces, along with improvements promised to the nearby JFK/UMass MBTA station.

When the bid was halted, so too were plans to redevelop Columbia Point. But last September, the city’s planning and development agency approved a $5 billion, 21-building mixed-use project along Mount Vernon Street and Morrissey Boulevard called Dorchester Bay City.

The project is expected to take 10-15 years to complete.

Equestrian events at White Stadium

A plan to refurbish Franklin Park’s White Stadium to host 10,000 spectators was included in both the original and revised 2024 Olympics bids. The venue would have been used for dressage and other equestrian events.

Equestrian cross-country would have taken place in park as well, specifically on the William J. Devine Municipal Golf Course, which organizers boasted as offering “varied terrain, water and exceptional viewing areas.” That venue would have held 60,000 people, according to bid documents. The plan called for the golf course to be rebuilt after the Games.

Plans for a “secure perimeter/fence line” around Franklin Park drew local attention when the initial bid was released. The perimeter would have enclosed both White Stadium and the golf course.

When the bid to host the Games ended, so too did the conversation around how to revitalize decrepit White Stadium. That is, until Boston Unity Soccer Partners — which is bringing a professional women’s soccer team to the city in 2026 — identified the site as its preferred location for the new NWSL franchise.

Last week, despite an ongoing lawsuit from residents in the area, the Boston Planning and Development Agency approved renovation plans for the stadium. The NWSL team owners intend to rebuild White Stadium into an 11,000-seat venue for home games; the stadium will be used by Boston Public Schools students during the rest of the year.

Tennis at Harambee Park

After initially considering Harvard, Boston 2024 organizers pitched a permanent tennis venue to be built in Dorchester’s Harambee Park in their revised bid. The park, just southeast of Franklin Park, is home to the historic Sportsmen’s Tennis & Enrichment Center. The park also would have hosted two separate temporary Olympic tennis courts.

Many community leaders and residents were supportive of the idea, and some expressed disappointment when the bid was canceled.

“I feel like the kids could find something and look at the athletes and envision themselves in that arena,” one resident told WBUR at the time. “I think that would have been great for Boston and these neighborhoods.”

Harambee Park is currently in the midst of renovations, with new athletic facilities including football, lacrosse, and soccer fields completed in recent years.

Archery at MIT, and other plans

As part of the initial Boston 2024 bid, the campuses of Harvard and MIT were included as sites for swimming and archery, respectively. Renderings showed an archery range directly in front of the iconic MIT dome. The 3,000-person venue would have been part of the “University Cluster” that included Harvard, MIT, and Boston University.

At Harvard, organizers proposed a temporary aquatics center, which would hold 18,500 spectators at Allston Landing.

In its revised bid, Boston 2024 moved the archery venue to Harvard Stadium but never found a home for the aquatics center.

Following the failed Olympics bid, Harvard pushed forward with plans to build a massive engineering and life sciences complex on the Allston site. That building opened in 2021 following COVID-related construction delays.

Velodrome at Assembly Square

Among the more obscure Olympic venues is the velodrome, an indoor venue with steep walls and an oval track specifically designed for cycling.

Athletes use special bikes with no gears and no brakes. They stay in one gear throughout the race and slow down by slowing their pedaling.

Velodromes can be expensive to build and have limited use to the general public. It cost nearly $150 million for London to create the venue for the 2012 Summer Games — and it still hosts international cycling events. But the sport is far less popular in the United States.

It’s no wonder why then-Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone didn’t want the Boston Olympic velodrome along the shores of the Mystic River.

In initial planning, the Boston 2024 organizers suggested that a velodrome could be built at Assembly Square, near the Assembly MBTA stop on the Orange Line that opened in 2014.

Curtatone, citing the lack of long-term benefit of the structure, said venues like a velodrome “won’t cut it” in Somerville.

In the nine years since the Olympic bid fell apart, Somerville’s Assembly Row has blossomed. The land where the velodrome was supposed to be built is a riverside park. More than 2,400 people live in the neighborhood, and 8 million retail customers come through establishments across the 40 acres every year.

The complex also generates substantial tax revenue — more than $60 million since opening, according to officials.

In 2015, when Somerville shot down the velodrome idea, organizers looked to their second choice: Suffolk Downs in East Boston. But the track’s operator also shot down the notion quickly. Developers have since opened The Stage at Suffolk Downs, an outdoor music venue, which debuted last year. But extensive plans to build thousands of housing units are on pause.

Organizers never determined where the Olympic velodrome might have landed; details weren’t included in their final bid in July 2015.

Katie McInerney can be reached at katie.mcinerney@globe.com. Follow her @k8tmac. Christina Prignano can be reached at christina.prignano@globe.com. Follow her @cprignano.