The chair of the company that owns London’s Olympic stadium "has stepped down amid concern" at the spiraling cost of renovating the venue for football matches, according to Murad Ahmed of the FINANCIAL TIMES. On Thursday, the London Legacy Development Corp. said that David Edmonds "had resigned his post." The move came two days after London Mayor Sadiq Khan ordered an inquiry into the bill for retrofitting the stadium for EPL side West Ham games, which has increased by more than £50M ($62.3M) in the past year. Edmonds, appointed LLDC chair in September last year, "had previously been a board member of the company" since '11 and led its investment committee. He was at the organization when it agreed to a much-criticized deal with West Ham in '13, in which the Premier League club was awarded a 99-year tenancy agreement for the stadium (FT, 11/3). The PA reported the modification of the London Stadium was predicted to cost £272M ($339M) but it has now risen to £323M ($403M). West Ham contributed just £15M ($18.7M) toward the project, "with the rest being funded by the taxpayer." This is "partly because the annual cost of moving the retractable seats" will be £8M ($10M), not £300,000 ($374,000) as originally estimated (PA, 11/3). BLOOMBERG's Tariq Panja reported the centerpiece of the 2012 Olympics has been "controversial from its inception through to the decision to lease it to West Ham ahead of rival bidders." The unexpected additional £50M required to make it fit for football pushes the total cost of the stadium to £752M ($937M). With that price tag, "the stadium ranks as the second most-expensive" in the U.K. (BLOOMBERG, 11/3).
MAJOR LOSSES AHEAD: In London, Owen Gibson reported the stadium is "facing operational losses running into millions of pounds for years to come due to problems finding a naming-rights partner and hugely increased costs for retractable seating." The sobering figures "are likely to reignite the debate" over whether West Ham’s £2.5M ($3.1M)-a-year rent represents "value for money for the taxpayer." Proponents of the deal, including former Mayor Boris Johnson, "always argued that only football offered a future for the stadium free of public subsidy." And yet it is understood that after a naming-rights deal fell through in the summer and "the full extent of the increased costs of moving the seats back and forth to make way for a running track became clear," there is "a black hole in the budget that makes it unlikely the stadium will break even for the foreseeable future." The cost of moving rows of seats from football mode "to accommodate the running track, and back again," every summer has soared from an estimated £300,000 to an extraordinary £8M. Costs "are so high partly because the seats have to be stored off-site in a specific configuration to enable them to be put back again, like a giant jigsaw puzzle." That will hit profits when staging non-sporting events like concerts -- a major revenue generator for E20 and its operating company LS185 (GUARDIAN, 11/2).
