2028 Olympic Games to Use UCLA Student Housing

LOS ANGELES — “Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now,” wrote personal time management guru Alan Lakein. It would seem the organizing committee for the 2028 Olympic Games and administrators at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have taken the words to heart — the organizations have already been exploring how the campus will morph into the athlete village for that year’s games.

The notion of using an existing facility rather than erecting a new housing complex for the olympians is relatively novel for the games, which generally create temporary or purpose-built athlete housing, observed aquatic sports magazine Swim Swam in a recent report.

With an annual enrollment of 45,000 students, with 11,000 undergraduates presently living on campus, the campus’ existing student housing is a natural choice to house the competitors, which numbered about 11,000 olympic and and 4,000 paralympic competitors in 2016. Moreover, the university’s campus, nestled in the commercial Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, includes five dining halls and five casual eating areas as well as nine athletics facilities, which will be available for training purposes.

Also lending student housing to the Olympic cause is University of Southern California (USC), which has an annual student population of 44,000 (19,000 undergraduate) and will provide housing for media among others.

As reported in a School Construction News podcast, the USC campus recently underwent a massive, $700 million development project, including the new USC Village, which combines residential college living for 2,500 students. During the summer months, when students are no longer on campus, the real estate could be available to athletes.

Using pre-existing, if seasonally underutilized, facilities is not without precedent. During the 1984 Olympic Games, which were also hosted in L.A., organizers implemented a similar strategy when they installed the Olympic village on USC’s campus and the Athletes Village on UCLA’s campus, respectively.

Some of UCLA’s facilities will also be used for the 2028 competitions. The 12,500-capacity Pauley Pavilion, an indoor arena primarily used for basketball, will host wrestling and judo, for example.

Check out the video below for more info regarding the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Village at UCLA.