Mostly A Boost For Commercial Properties, With Some Longer-Term Headaches As Well
The Olympic and Paralympic Games come and go with great fanfare in their host cities, often leaving behind a mixed legacy. Some facilities built for the Games linger as white elephants, along with municipal debt. Other cities enjoy a valuable boost to their image worldwide, along with improved infrastructure that fosters economic growth.
The impact of the Games on local commercial real estate markets is also mixed. In the short term, hospitality, retail, and office markets might get a boost, and over a longer period, infrastructure built for the Games supports commercial development. On the other hand, underutilized facilities can contribute to urban blight, and stimulation from the event can lead to real estate corrections afterward.
Examples of unused or underutilized facilities from past Olympics are the stuff the periodic news reports and Internet lists, especially around the time the Games are held. These places can amount to blight, discouraging further real estate development, though they aren't unique to the Olympics, as idle World Cup stadiums in various countries illustrate.
While the Olympics have left their share of troubled legacies around the world, few are as notorious as that of Montreal in 1976. Preparation for the Games was mismanaged, with its facilities barely completed on time. The Olympic Stadium evolved, at great expense, into a usable facility post-Olympics, and overall, it took 30 years for the city to pay for the event. Because of a failure in planning, Montreal's experience with the Games didn't do much for its local real estate market.
Other Olympic host cities have seen at least temporary disruptions in commercial real estate. Barcelona, host of the 1992 Summer Olympics — which arguably put the city on the world stage — experienced a spike in office vacancies afterward as development accelerated, up from 0.7 percent in 1989 to 10.4% in 1992. Although rates later moderated, the initial surge reflected the rapid expansion. Salt Lake City, host of the 2002 Winter Games, increased its office supply by about 20% at the time, leading to vacancies peaking at nearly 22% afterwards.
Stakeholders have to be involved at early stages and have a clear version on how to utilize the facilities and how that will benefit the city.
"In Barcelona and Sydney [2000], property markets expanded sharply in the lead up to their Games, only to settle back afterward," JLL National Director of Sports and Entertainment, Project and Development Services, Robert Koshgarian says.
"Athens and Rio [2016] grappled with underused venues that created long term maintenance burdens. These varying outcomes highlight the importance of adaptable legacy planning beyond the games."
Overall, however, the Olympics are mostly beneficial to their host cities, according to Avison Young Principal Eri Mitsostergiou, SIOR, who is based in Athens, host of the 2004 Summer Games. But there is no guarantee that the short-term economic stimulus will evolve into something more long-lasting. Such positive results take effort, however, especially in the planning stages, she says.
“Stakeholders have to be involved at early stages and have a clear version on how to utilize the facilities and how that will benefit the city,” she says, for both the lead up to the Games and afterwards. “It requires coordination between all the administrative bodies involved, setting targets from the beginning, to have a successful outcome.”
Olympic Impact: Modern Games, Ancient Site
It wasn't always clear that the 2004 Games benefited Athens and its commercial property markets — especially in the tumultuous years of the global financial crisis (GFC), Mitsostergiou argues. But more than 20 years later, the impact is evident. The direct spending on the facilities and the temporary boost to office leasing and hospitality were just that, temporary.
The Games' longer-term benefits for Athens stemmed from the international attention the city received as a host – mainly benefiting hospitality real estate – and infrastructure improvements in the region, which benefited the broader real estate market, Mitsostergiou says.
“The Olympics raised the profile of the city,” Mitsostergiou says. “It was the beginning of what we're seeing today, which is the city of Athens as a booming tourist destination. Back then, people discovered that Athens is much more than an overnight stop to visit the Acropolis.”
Athens certainly has tourist momentum these days. The city saw nearly 8 million foreign tourists arrive in 2024 — a record-breaking 12% increase from 2023 and a 24% rise compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
Mitsostergiou also cites infrastructure development as an important legacy of the Athens Games, one that continues to support economic and real estate growth. The projects included the opening of Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport, along with improvements to roads and underground trains. About 90 km (55 miles) of new roads were built ahead of the 2004 Games, and a further 120 km (75 miles) were widened, with a new computerized traffic management system installed to help manage traffic.
“The infrastructure delivered for the Olympic Games created new commercial hubs that didn't exist before, and connecting roads between points related to the Games enabled the city to expand in areas that wasn't [sic] expanding before,” Mitsostergiou says, noting further that it was fortuitous timing – before the GFC, when such projects would have been mostly impossible.
The 21-acre Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta, created for the event, serves as a long-term amenity — the kind cities need to help foster real estate growth in place of urban decay, she points out. Indeed, the park has been a catalyst for development in that part of metro Atlanta over the nearly 30 years since the Games, including apartment and hospitality properties.
Olympic Impact: A U.S. Example
A U.S. example of commercial real estate benefiting from the Olympics is Atlanta, according to Colliers Director of National Office Research Marianne Skorupski.
“Atlanta was one of the first cities to consciously plan the Olympic infrastructure for life post the Olympics,” Skorupski says.
The 21-acre Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta, created for the event, serves as a long-term amenity — the kind cities need to help foster real estate growth in place of urban decay, she points out. Indeed, the park has been a catalyst for development in that part of metro Atlanta over the nearly 30 years since the Games, including apartment and hospitality properties.
“The athletes' village became student housing for Georgia Tech, and the opening ceremonies venue became the new Turner Field for the Atlanta Braves,” Skorupski says. “Various sites that hosted around the state – because there were sports that were hosted outside of Atlanta proper – were strategically planned. I know that multiple Olympic Committees since then have visited Atlanta, to see how they did it."
The Olympics are at least partly responsible for the population growth that Atlanta has experienced in the decades since the event, Skorupski says — growth that has helped sustain the region’s real estate market. In 1996, the metro's population was 3.5 million: today. it stands at 6.4 million. Office inventory has grown roughly 60% over the last 30 years and industrial inventory has nearly doubled, she points out.
"The Olympics are an opportunity for any city to show off," Skorupski says, adding that raising global awareness often leads to increased investment in local real estate.
Looking Ahead: Los Angeles and Brisbane
The next two Summer Games will be held in Los Angeles in 2028 and Brisbane, Australia, in 2032. There have already been impacts on the local real estate markets.
"I don't see Los Angeles creating a new economy, or a new city on a permanent basis afterwards," says Chris Maling, principal at Avison Young, noting that the metro is too large to be remade entirely by an event — even one as major as the Olympics. "I think it's going to enhance what's already there and create awareness."
Not many new facilities will be developed for the 2028 Games, but upgrades to public transit (especially the LA Metro) and improvements to roads are already in the works. Properties near these improved transit lines or revitalized areas tend to see appreciation and thus investor interest.
"At the end of the day, it will be an economic driver, for the city of Los Angeles and for southern California," Maling says.
Looking ahead to 2028, Los Angeles is maintaining a disciplined approach, with the LA28 Organizing Committee operating on a privately funded $6.9 billion budget that is projected to break even through sponsorships, ticketing, and broadcast rights, according to Koshgarian.
Southern California’s 2028 preparations are designed to spread benefits across diverse submarkets, Koshgarian says. In Long Beach, enhancements to Marine Stadium and adjacent waterfront venues will energize nearby retail and hospitality corridors, while Anaheim’s Honda Center and Carson’s VELO Sports Center will anchor activity in their respective communities. USC’s renovation of the Coliseum cements the long-term vitality of the venue.
The strongest impact of the Olympics will be in and near the neighborhood of Inglewood, Maling says, which will host most of the events and has already seen a sports-related boost from the opening of SoFi Stadium, home of the LA Rams and LA Chargers. The 2028 Olympic opening ceremony will be shared between the LA Memorial Coliseum and the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood — an unprecedented dual-venue celebration that aligns with Los Angeles’ plan to use existing sports infrastructure for the Games.
In Brisbane, anticipation of the Games is already driving demand for commercial and residential space. Besides a surge in tourist visits that promote hospitality development, CBRE predicts that office-using companies will expand into Brisbane — the smallest metro to host the Games since 1976 — due to the city's higher international profile.
"The recognition benefits are likely to be larger for Brisbane than existing major global cities such as London and Tokyo, given tourists and the corporate sector are very familiar with those destinations," CBRE noted in a recent report on the potential impact of the event. The report predicts as much as 20,000 square meters (215,000 square feet) of new office development as a result.
Per CBRE: "This new-found fame may lead real estate investors to identify Brisbane as a global gateway city given its growth potential.”
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