The company set up to ensure a lasting legacy in east London following the 2012 Olympics said Friday it is getting ''a lot of interest'' in future uses for the main stadium.
The 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium, which will be the venue for the track and field competition and opening and closing ceremonies, is designed to be reduced to 25,000 seats after the games.
''We're getting responses back by the end of the month on what the potential uses of the stadium will be,'' Olympic Park Legacy Company chief executive Andrew Altman said. ''We're getting a lot of interest.''
Earlier Friday, the London Assembly published a report saying only a major soccer or rugby club could keep the stadium from becoming a so-called white elephant. That would mean keeping the stadium at a capacity larger than 25,000.
The report was issued by the Assembly's Economic Development, Culture, Sport and Tourism Committee. It appeared to give a boost to West Ham, the Premier League club that has expressed interest in moving into the stadium after the Olympics.
''The only sustainable future for the stadium is regular, high capacity events,'' committee chairman Len Duvall said. ''Put simply, an elite 25,000-seat athletics stadium is not, and was never going to be, in the long-term interests of the East End or of the taxpayer.''
Another potential investor is American sports and entertainment giant AEG, which revived the former Millennium Dome site near the Olympic Park into the successful O2 Arena.
The Olympic Park Legacy Company was set up last year to manage the long-term future of the Olympic Park in Stratford and ensure that venues are not left vacant. Most of the debate has focused on the Olympic Stadium, and the company has given interested parties until Sept. 30 to lodge proposals, hoping to establish key terms for a long-term lease by Dec. 31.
The company would like the winning bidder to sign such lease by March 31, 2011, and start revamping the stadium in November 2012. The aim is for events to resume on the site in 2014.
''We're very hopeful that we're going to have a good use for the stadium,'' said Altman, a leading American urban planner and former deputy mayor of Philadelphia.
