ODA plan for extended 999 lease on media centre site rejected by London Development Agency

Boris Johnson's regeneration body is understood to have blocked a proposal by the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) to take up an extended lease on the 2012 media centre.

The proposed 999-year lease would have allowed the ODA to offset it's ballooning costs against the future sale of the site, reports Building magazine. But the site's freeholder, the London Development Agency, which is also responsible for the Olympic legacy, is understood to have resisted the ODA's proposal and demanded promises on the media centre's legacy development before contemplating the move.

It is thought that the ODA has since abandoned this route and reverted to planning the development on the basis of no guaranteed post-Olympic returns based on land value.

In related news, Building reports that senior ODA executives have met with board members of shopping centre developer Westfield to discuss housing part of the main press centre at the Stratford City development instead of the original media centre site.

Contracts for four temporary 2012 Olympic venues will be combined into packages with individual contractors working on elements common for each venue, reports Contract Journal.

Temporary elements making up the majority of facilities for basketball, water polo, BMX and the training centre at Eton Manor are expected to be contain a total of 36,500 temporary seats.

The work will be split into 15 packages and elements common to all four will be handed to a single firm, said CJ. Last week the ODA kicked off the process by calling on firms to submit tenders to design and build the £60m basketball arena.