L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti said that “blowback wasn't the reason for the surprise announcement last month" that LA 2024 shelved the idea of using the Piggyback Yard area on the edge of downtown for an Olympic Village "in favor of a more practical and vastly more economical plan of using student housing at UCLA," according to a Q&A by Mariel Garza of the L.A. TIMES. Garcetti said, “Piggyback Yard is an isolated piece of geography even for the northeast (of L.A.), right? It doesn’t exactly bleed into a main street or a neighborhood. ... When I thought about getting from there to the (L.A. Memorial) Coliseum, it’s probably as long as it will be from Westwood, assuming the subway stop, because it’s a 21-minute ride from Westwood to downtown. ... But it’s not substantively much longer.” Garcetti said of how the location shift unfolded, “Two years ago UCLA wasn’t sure it could meet the number of units because they hadn’t made the decision, which they have in the meantime, to build another 2,000 dorm rooms, which does take them well over the beds and units that we need. ... We evaluated like 24 sites. ... This was the most athlete-centric.” Garcetti, when asked if the same facilities could have been built at Piggyback, said, “I don’t think we could have financially built the sports facilities and not have them also be white elephants and meet anything of the river plan. It would have been financially totally irresponsible.” He said of what UCLA is charging for rent, “We have to work out the terms. Nobody is looking to game anyone. We will have to pay an overlay, probably just like we have to do at the Coliseum for track -- $150 million to do track and field there. So it will be something. It’s not going to be zero dollars but it’s not going to be a billion” (L.A. TIMES, 2/11).
