The future of the Olympic Village for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, inaugurated by Emmanuel Macron on February 29, is clear.
Miguel Medina / AFP
The Olympic Village, which will welcome athletes participating in next summer’s Paris 2024 Games, will be inaugurated this Thursday, February 29, by the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron. At the end of the Paralympic Games, it will become a classic residential area.
Olympic Games – It is a city that has barely risen from the ground, but which is experiencing its next two lives. North of Paris, at the crossroads between the three communities of Saint-Denis, L’Île-Saint-Denis and Saint-Ouen, the Olympic Village is inaugurated this Thursday, February by the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron. 29, a little less than five months before the start of the Paris Olympics.
An extra step for the mammoth project, which still needs to go through some adjustments before the stars of the Olympic and Paralympic Games take over the premises in early summer. Temporarily in any case, because at the end of the global phenomenon, the neighborhood will become a residential space whose purpose is very modern.
· Until July: Kojo takes over space
Barring a few minor delays, almost all the 82 buildings are now complete. At least as far as structural function and external appearance are concerned. Because Cojo, the Olympic Organizing Committee chaired by Tony Estanguet, who will receive the keys after the ribbon cutting by Emmanuel Macron, will now have to develop the entire complex, which covers an area of more than 52 hectares.
Miguel Medina / AFP
A view of the Olympic Village in Seine-Oin in Seine-Saint-Denis on February 16, 2024.
In this case, thousands of beds and bedside tables, but also fans and sofas have to be installed. A laundromat will also be arranged. Even more important: the large nave of the Cité du cinema founded by Luc Besson in Saint-Denis will be transformed into a huge canteen.
And that’s without even mentioning the grocery store, police station, hairdressing salon, fitness room, bar (without alcohol) or multi-faith center that will slowly see the light of day between now and arrival. The first Olympic athlete. Or the polyclinic that will open in Saint-Ouen.
Until September: A global phenomenon
Because if Kojo thinks so big, it is because more than 14,000 athletes (including some with their staff) will settle in the village of Seine-Saint-Denis during the games, once the mid-July inauguration, which will take place. As usual in the presence of International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach.
During the Olympics, a permanently open canteen will serve 40,000 meals a day, according to organizers, while other restaurants and food trucks will round out the offering to allow champions to eat. A dozen concierges will look after the maintenance of the apartments (whose occupants will change as the tests progress), bicycles and electric shuttles will allow residents to get around… in short, a real city within a city.
Miguel Medina / AFP
Workers at the Olympic Village at Saint-On in Seine-Saint-Denis on February 16, 2024.
· 2025: A neighborhood almost the same as any other
Unlike some disastrous historical precedents, such as the Olympic Village built for the Rio Games in 2016 and now abandoned, this vision of the city is destined to continue even after the Olympics. It is in this sense that in mid-September, once the Paralympic Games are over, workers will return to the site for some work to make the apartments habitable for families.
Eventually, 6,000 residents are expected to move in and occupy the housing built over the past seven years, and 6,000 employees will work there. The clinical space will become an osteopathy school and 35 nursery and primary classes will be created in two school groups. And Solido, the public body in charge of the site, is highlighting modern features: a new bridge spanning the Seine, housing benefiting from modern insulation, a noise barrier to keep out the A86 motorway, envisioned as a crossroads between the future Playal station. Future Lines of Grand Prix Express…
The fact is that in order for the village to lose its Olympic status and become a neighborhood like any other, residents will need to find out. If – during an exchange with journalists before Emmanuel Macron’s visit – Elysée did not want to detail the progress of the sale, citing the difficult context of home ownership, real estate developers will recover the renovated properties early next year, and the first residents aim to settle in the summer of 2025.
With the aim of inclusiveness, that means there will be social rental housing, intermediate rent houses (below market prices). And if the Presidency assures that assistance is planned in case of difficulties in filling housing, developers have already had to lower their prices to try to find buyers.
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