I haven’t been providing updates on Tokyo’s butt-ugly 2020 Olympic stadium, mostly for lack of time, so let me remedy that now: Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe says it’s too late to change the design, and also the price tag has now risen to a breathtaking $2 billion, making it the most expensive stadium the world has ever seen:
What is the money buying? The design of the stadium’s ribbed roof on huge steel arches resembles a bicycle helmet. To support a natural grass field, the roof’s southern end will be translucent to let in sunlight and underground will be soil ventilation and temperature control systems. Movable seats will bring the crowd closer for more intimate events, and this being Japan, the stadium will have earthquake-resistant features…
Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College in Massachusetts, added that he suspects the cost will rise further during construction, which is due to begin in October.
Despite widespread popular opposition to the plan, it looks like the stadium, and its soaring price tag, will go ahead as scheduled. At least it’s given the Japanese public the opportunity to create lots of macros comparing the stadium to a potty seat, and who can put a price on that?
This will cause a bigger hit to Japan’s economy and infrastructure than Godzilla, Mothra and Ghidrah combined. Is there even one country left with any common sense?
Hmmph. I thought the “new” Wembley, once all was said and done, topped £1Bn? As I recall the original budget was £660m, and they pretty much doubled that.
Even at the then current exchange rates, that still doesn’t push it over $2Bn USD, but it would have been near to new Giants stadium territory.
Anyone else find it odd that we can’t find the capital to build a modern power plant for $2bn, something that might actually make money in the long run, but we can find $2Bn to build something for which it is admitted that the construction cost will be essentially written off the day the final check is written?
We could create more jobs for less public cost (and target those jobs to local unskilled workers rather than imported skilled workers) if we simply spent an equivalent amount to have people dig holes in the ground and then refill them the next day. Plus, there are no unfunded operating liabilities related to digging and refilling holes. And at the end of it all, you can send the employees home with their shovels as a bonus.
They just need to make “low-carbon power generation” an Olympic sport. Problem solved! (Also, would still be more fun to watch than fencing.)
I’m not suggesting that this is an apt comparison for the Tokyo White Elephant, but has anyone (that you know of, Neil) tried to estimate the actual construction cost of Rome’s Coliseum in today’s dollars?
This would require, of course, assigning a labour value to the slave labour that built most of it… and to the settlement costs had the workers who were killed during construction had their survivors compensated… but surely a gifted economist could do such a thing?
I thought ‘low carbon power production’ was part of the Modern Pentathlon (along with all that 18th century soldier training that makes up the other events)?
No, it was part of the pentathlon, but it got bumped in favor of Tweeting.
Maybe they felt bad about not spending as much as originally promised: I revisited Neil’s post of 7/7/14 and he noted that it was initially projected at $3B. With the inevitable overruns during construction, they should be able to get pretty close.
@John here’s a Reddit thread discussing the Coliseum. An architect pegs it at least a $750 million to $1 billion building if built today due the the massive amount of marble and gold used.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1jchu2/how_much_would_the_roman_colosseum_cost_if_it/
And the eyesore in Japan, assuming it gets built, will likely cost over $5 billion USD alone. For the record, London spent $10.4 billion on the 2012 Olympics and Rio is expected to spend $11.6 billion, both USD. Not including Transportation infrastructure, Tokyo’s budget is $3 billion USD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_the_Olympic_Games
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Summer_Olympics
Assuming the above numbers are correct, $5 billion might be too little of a budget for just one item. Not only are people going to die building that thing, but the people building the stadium are going to demand pay. In addition, keeping it safe from earthquakes and building the roof are the other major costs. Hopefully the people of Japan start protesting to the point Japan loses the games.
Awesome, thanks Persi. Absent any real information, I would have guessed over 1 Bn….
Take that back about fencing.
I’d prefer watching the kind involving stolen goods.
@John Blandon – For a good comparison on slave labor, you can just review the Qatar World Cup venues.
Mark;
Qatar’s world cup build program may be deeply offensive when looked at in isolation, but it is not dissimilar to the way most of Dubai has been built, the way nearly all of the Chinese Olympic venues were built, etc etc.
In fact, if one does a little research, you will find the same (poor) countries supply the cooking and cleaning staff to the US military in the middle east… and many of the individuals who “win” those jobs have to pay a fee up front (often $3-5,000) to land the job with a concession contractor on a US base. They often work for 6-8 months without pay just to cover that up front fee (which, of course, the contractor they work for is only happy to advance them based on future earnings).
We like to look down our noses at other countries for abusing the poor. We don’t much care for looking at comparisons to the way we treat our own (or other people’s) poor.
While I am not aware of any poor people (workers or otherwise) being executed to make way for the Atlanta olympics, they were certainly forcibly evicted from the land they had lived on for many years, and in many cases the promised “high quality” replacement housing they were promised never materialized (just like always… ask the former residents of chavez ravine about that).
Qatar’s program is certainly offensive. And very probably the worst example in recent memory. But it is not alone in abusing poor and underprivileged people for the benefit of a relatively small number of extremely wealthy people.