The media center is "one of the biggest and most critical venues required to host the Olympics," and Boston 2024 organizers "don’t know where they can put it," according to Michael Levenson of the BOSTON GLOBE. Boston 2024 CEO Richard Davey said, "We feel like there’s a solution that hasn’t presented itself." Levenson noted the committee in its initial bid budgeted $500M for a private developer to "build the mammoth center next to the South Boston Convention Center and then turn it into biotech offices after the Olympics." But after "neighborhood opposition, Boston 2024 scrapped the proposal and, in its revised bid released last month, did not identify a location for the center and slashed the cost" to $50M. Davey said that the current plan is to "use the money to rent 1 million square feet in separate buildings." But a remote location "may not sit well with veteran Olympic reporters accustomed to walking to the Olympic Stadium or the aquatics center, then walking back to file their stories." Chicago Tribune reporter Philip Hersh said, "The pattern has been to have the media center right next to the most important venues." Hersh said that a press center outside Boston "could force thousands of journalists into buses, clogging roadways." He added that it could also "make it less likely that athletes would come to the center for press conferences after they win medals, a tradition at past Olympics" (BOSTON GLOBE, 7/11).
