Olympics organizers talking to businesses that would have to move for stadium

At a City Council hearing today, Boston 2024 Richard Davey said he has finally begun talking to the owners of the food-processing businesses in Widett Circle, which would have to leave to make room for the "Midtown" stadium that would be one of the focal points of a 2024 Olympics in Boston.

Davey also told City Councilor Charles Yancey, who sees pretty much every public event as an opportunity to push for a high school in Mattapan, that, sure, maybe Boston 2024 could help him with that.

Davey said some of the Widett Circle business owners he talked to are actually looking for opportunities to expand and that finding a good location for them near a major highway could be a win-win for them and the Olympics, should the International Olympics Committee pick Boston in 2017.

His comments came after Boston 2024 majordomo John Fish called Widett Circle 85 acres of land that is "completely underutilized," which brought a rebuke from City Councilor Tito Jackson (Roxbury): "There are companies and businesses that are thriving in that area."

Even City Councilor Michael Flaherty (at large), who praised Fish as a great Bostonian who has showed "personal accountability and leadership" on the Olympics, urged him to be "sensitive" to the Widett issue.

As they have done at other meetings with Boston residents and officials, Fish and Davey said that, if nothing else, the Olympics can be a great spur to further investments in the sorts of things that would make Boston even more of a world-class city than it already is. Imagine, Davey asked, if Morrissey Boulevard were fixed or the JFK/UMass station underwent a major upgrade. Davey made his comments after Councilor Matt O'Malley (West Roxbury, Jamaica Plain) asked: "Why do we need the games to address the massive shortfalls in the MBTA [and housing shortfalls]?"

However, Davey acknowledged that the Boston Olympics bid relies only on transportation upgrades the state has already budgeted for, such as new cars on the Red and Orange Lines and the extension of the Green Line, but said he remains hopeful Boston 2024 could help spur spending on other enhancements.

"To be frank, some of those transportation ideas are not currently funded," he said. Among these: New ramps off I-93 to the proposed Olympic village on Columbia Point - which would go through land now owned by the Boston Globe, and which are shown on initial Boston 2024 plans. Davey said he is optimistic a deal can be struck with the Globe - or whoever buys the land - but acknowledged his group would have to talk to state and city officials about the project as well.

Fish said that after Boston won the USOC nods, the number of tweets that mentioned the city exploded. He predicted a similar global effect during the Games, which can only help increase Boston's exposure on the world stage and better help it in international commerce.

And when Jackson asked about whether funding to local non-profit groups would dry up as big corporate sponsors throw their money at Olympic sponsorships, Fish said, no, the opposite would happen: the Olympics "will open up the floodgates" for local non-profits when people around the world discover how awesome our local non-profits are.

Chris Dempsey, co-chairman of No Boston Olympics, said he and other members of the group realize that Boston can put on great Olympics. But he said the financial plan is still too tenuous and could leave taxpayers on the hook for overruns. He pointed to a $600-million payment from the International Olympics Committee to Boston - that he said would simply be turned over to the US Olympic Committee rather than actually be spent locally.

Davey said that's bunk, that all modern US Olympics games have ended up making money and that Boston 2024 has already bought insurance and is looking at other ways to protect both itself and the city from overruns.

Dempsey said that while the 1984 Los Angeles games did run a profit, they did so only after a significant overrun. And he noted the Los Angeles City Council had passed a measure barring the city from spending any money on the games. He urged Boston councilors to do the same.