The celebrations that spread across China when the International Olympic Committee awarded the 2008 Summer Games to Beijing have subsided as Chinese officials step into the massive job of planning and building what may be the world's largest construction program. Besides $3.2 billion earmarked for construction of Olympic venues, Beijing will spend $21.6 billion to bolster the city's infrastructure and clean its water and air. Now, Chinese organizing officials are poised to begin the search for developers, designers and contractors to build the program.

LEADER Ping says foreigners are invited and project details are coming soon.

The scope of the project will be matched only by its pace. Ping Yongquan, director of venue planning and construction for the Beijing Organizing Committee, says most projects must be substantially complete by mid-2006 to allow sufficient time for shakeout and testing. Ping is leading the effort to attract international firms to the committee's design competition. "We will launch the bidding for design and construction in a fair way...that is open to the world," he says.

That competition includes such high-profile jobs as a new 80,000-seat National Stadium, a 19,000-seat arena, a 20,000-seat cultural and sport center and a 17,000-seat swimming center. Altogether, 37 sporting venues will be built or renovated, 32 of them in Beijing. Nineteen of the venues will be new. Another 59 projects must be built for training and support facilities, including such things as an international broadcast center and the Olympic Village. About 3.3 million sq meters of space must be built.

Firms will work under a master plan now being developed by Cambridge, Mass.-based Sasaki Associates, in association wth a local planning firm. Sasaki won the job in July, after a competition that attracted 89 proposals from more than 100 firms. "We found the competition to be open and transparent," says David L McIntyre, a Sasaki principal.

Ping says the organizing committee will "soon" release details for a request for proposals for "owners," or developers, of the venues. An international jury of six international firms and seven Chinese firms will oversee the selection.

COMING SOON Master plan calls for an "Olympic Green" to spread over 1,135 hectares in Beijing. (Graphic courtesy of Sasaki Design)

Ping says the committee expects the owners to bring about two-thirds of the overall $3.2-billion cost to the table. That differs from the infrastructure push being funded and managed entirely through the national and local governments. Venue owners will supply their own team of designers and contractors and must also supply an operational plan for the venue's post-Olympic use. The organizing committee hopes to attract major international corporations as owners. Requirements of the master plan will be built into the owners' bid documents, says Ping.

The government will act as owner for some of the venues, says Ping, and will bid for designers and contractors on those projects. He says there are no targets or quotas for the number of Chinese or international firms that will work on the project.

Ping, 62, is an architect who was general director of the Beijing Urban Planning Board. He left in 2000 to lead the city's bidding committee that landed the Games and now is leading the effort to not only build facilities, but a program that promises to modernize Beijing and influence the rest of the country.

Major infrastructure projects needed to handle the needs and movement of millions of visitors include five rail lines, 500 km of roads, four new transit hubs and a series of environmental projects that include three new wastewater treatment plants. To remedy Beijing's poor air quality, officials are phasing out the common use of coal in the city and substituting natural gas. A second pipeline from north Shaanxi to Beijing is under construction. Two area generating stations are to be converted from coal-fired operations to gas, and another eight power stations will be built or expanded.

The master plan calls for the development of a new district in the northern section of Beijing. The "Olympic Green" in the center will sprawl over 1,135 hectares. Ping says some 2,000 families will be relocated to build Olympic complex, where about 500,000 people are expected to circulate during peak times.

Getting visitors into the country also requires a massive upgrade of Beijing's Capital International Airport. Plans call for construction of a new runway and another international terminal to handle between 45 million and 50 million passengers per year.

Ping, speaking to industry officials at a Washington, D.C., forum sponsored by McGraw-Hill Construction, which publishes ENR, says specific information on venues, bidding and the selection process for owners will be detailed shortly. General program descriptions can be found at the Olympics organizing committee's Website beijing-olympic.org.cn or the city of Beijing's Website, bjinvest.gov.cn.