They are just two words - white and elephant. Together, they are enough to make any Olympic planner wake up in a cold sweat.
``Absolutely - usually at 3 in the morning,'' said Andrew Altman, a leading American urban developer who has a key role in deciding the long-term use of the Olympic Stadium and flagship complex being built for the 2012 London Games. ``You don't want to create these facilities at great investment just to sit idle.''
The former deputy mayor of Philadelphia and head of the Anacostia waterfront project in Washington, D.C., Altman is chief executive of the Olympic Park Legacy Company, which is in charge of ensuring the post-games success of one of the biggest British regeneration projects in decades.
The undertaking is massive: turning a 560-acre site in a rundown industrial swath of east London into the centerpiece park of gleaming new venues and landscaped grounds for the 2012 Games.
``This is one of those very rare projects that is going to have a dramatic, transformative effect on a city,'' Altman said in an interview with The Associated Press.
It better.
London is under intense pressure to get things right, particularly during these tough economic times.
The city was awarded the Olympics in 2005 due in part to the organizers' promises of remaking the east London area, with all the opportunity and quality-of-life improvements that means. The capital budget for the Olympics stands at $13.8 billion, nearly three times the original figure, and the additional cost of converting the park to its post-games look is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
The previous two Summer Games host cities - Beijing and Athens - have struggled to find uses for their Olympic facilities, and London is determined to avoid those mistakes.
``We're not waiting,'' said Altman, a 47-year-old Philadelphia native who was appointed to the London post last year. ``We're finding occupiers now who are going to use these facilities after the games. Our goal is to move as seamlessly as possible from after games into legacy so we don't have any white elephants.''
Comparing the London transformation to such major projects in the United States as the creation of New York's Central Park, the Big Dig in Boston and the redevelopment of San Francisco's waterfront, Altman said the Olympics bring an even greater impact.
Though it's just a 15-minute drive from some of London's leading banks and financial companies, the construction area is a disused industrial zone encompassing some of the city's poorest areas.
``You take the scale of this project and add to it the Olympics, and it's really urban regeneration on steroids,'' Altman said. ``It's accelerating regeneration by decades.''
The sheer scale of the park project, he said, is often difficult for the public to grasp.
``People often say, 'When will see the legacy?''' Altman said. ``You're seeing it now. Just go to the site. You're in awe of it. You are literally building a city there.''
A recent tour of the area bears this out: About 10,000 workers toiling on one of the biggest construction sites in Europe; scores of cranes, bulldozers and other building equipment dotting the grounds; the Olympic Stadium, swimming and diving enter, velodrome, media center, athletes' village and Europe's largest urban shopping mall rapidly taking shape.
``Not only is it an astounding project in its scope and ambition, but you are in one of the great global cities of the world,'' said Altman, whose office is adjacent to the park. ``I wake up every morning and say, 'It's like a bit of a dream for someone in my field.'''
The defining symbol of the post-games challenge for London is the $788 million, 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium, which will host the opening and closing ceremonies and track and field events. The main external structure is in place and has been a fixture on the east London skyline for months.
The stadium was originally intended to be downsized to a 25,000-capacity arena after the games, with track and field as the ``core'' activity.
But the long-term use has been a hot-button issue of debate: Should the stadium be retained as a larger-capacity arena for soccer? Can a soccer stadium include a running track around the playing field? What other sports should be considered?
To settle the matter once and for all, the legacy company invited expressions of interest in the stadium last week. West Ham, a Premier League soccer club that plays at nearby Upton Park, immediately submitted a bid with Newham - one of the four local boroughs encompassing the park - to relocate to the stadium after 2012.
``The last thing anyone wants is for the Olympic Stadium to become a ghost of Olympics past,'' Newham Mayor Robin Wales said. ``The only realistic solution is to make the stadium work for a Premier League football team and that should be West Ham.''
The stadium has also been included in England's bid to host the 2018 World Cup. Any soccer use would require a bigger capacity than 25,000.
UK Athletics also jumped in quickly, saying it would like to stage top-level international meets at the stadium, including the World Championships in 2015.
Other potential users include rugby, Twenty20 cricket and even American football and baseball.
The legacy group's documents allow for varying playing configurations and capacities between 25,000 and 80,000 seats. The body says it has ``no preconceived plans ... and is flexible to innovative solutions that may come forward.''
The initial bidding phase is for two months. A final decision will be made by the end of March 2011.
Altman declined to discuss specific options, but said it is crucial to find a solution ahead of the games.
``It was important for us to move forward with confidence so that we could settle a position on it,'' he said. ``Everything in the park has to be done right. Hopefully this is setting the bar.''
The park will have four other permanent sports venues: the aquatics center, a multi-use arena, the velodrome and a mixed-used complex for indoor and outdoor activities. The main broadcast and media center, which will house 20,000 journalists during the games, will be used for office and retail space after 2012.
Other temporary venues will be dismantled.
Rising just at the entrance of the park is the 1.9 million square-foot Westfields shopping center, billed as the largest in Europe. The park is also next to the Stratford transit hub, with rail lines to central London and the European continent.
The intention is for the park to boast new housing, schools and medical facilities after the Olympics, turning the area into a vibrant neighborhood.
``It's not an island,'' Altman said. ``The goal is to connect the site with east London communities.''
Of course, there are cautionary tales from recent host cities.
Six years after the 2004 Athens Olympics, more than half the venues are not used at all or are only used occasionally.
The ``Olympic Green'' complex in Beijing has struggled to find much after-use since the 2008 Games - even the Bird's Nest, the iconic main stadium that cost the Chinese government $450 million to build and millions more annually to maintain.
The Beijing stadium's largest source of revenue comes from tourists who pay about $7 to visit the arena, pose for photos and climb through the expensive seats to a souvenir shop. The number of visitors has dropped from a peak of 50,000 per day to just a few thousand.
The Water Cube - the swimming venue where Michael Phelps won eight gold medals - has hosted a fashion show, but gets little use otherwise.
``You take lessons,'' Altman said. ``That's why we're pushing forward with the stadium. This is the time to move.''
Altman has worked in Washington, New York, Los Angeles, Oakland and Philadelphia. As an American brought in to lead a major British project, he has immersed himself in the political and planning processes driven by the government and mayor's office.
``You have to learn and understand the city that you're in,'' said Altman, who has settled in northwest London with his wife and two children, aged 6 and 2. ``You can't think, 'I'm coming in, I can solve this.' You'd be a fool.''
In the long run, he said, the success of the Olympic project will come down to something very basic.
``What we're really doing is taking this site and creating a 'place,''' Altman said. ``At the end of the day, you'll be judged on, 'Is this a place you want to be? Is it place you want to visit? Is it a place you want to live and play?'''
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Associated Press writers Christopher Bodeen in Beijing and Derek Gatapoulos in Athens contributed to this report.
