NYC Named Olympics Finalist

New York City was named a finalist by the International Olympic Committee to host the 2012 Olympic Games. The committee will make a final decision on July 6, 2005.

New York will be competing against four other cities - London, Madrid, Moscow and Paris. Four cities that failed to make the cut in May were Havana; Istanbul, Turkey; Leipzig, Germany; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Hosting the Olympics Game would be a huge boost to the New York economy and would bring thousands of new jobs in the construction sector with the building of new sports facilities such as the New York Sports and Convention Center on Manhattan's Far West Side.

Geography favors a European city for 2012 with the 2008 Summer Olympics being held in Asia (Beijing, China) and the 2010 Winter Games in North America (Vancouver, British Columbia.)

Industry Groups Fund Ad Campaign

Industry organizations banded together in an advertising campaign to support the Hudson Yards plan, which includes expansion of the Jacob Javits Center and construction of a football stadium for the New York Jets.

The New York Building Congress contributed $100,000, the Building and Construction Trades Council and the Building Trades Employers' Association gave $100,000 and the New York Hotel and Motel Trade Council gave $50,000.

The campaign included television ads that ran in May and June on NY1, Fox 5 News and UPN News. The New York Jets organization also ran ads in June supporting the plan on the newscasts of channels 2, 4 and 7.

Industry Could Face Labor Shortage

With New York City about to undergo a multi-billion dollar surge in large scale building projects, construction industry leaders warned that the city was unprepared to meet the anticipated demand for qualified workers and called for the creation of new workforce training and recruitment initiatives.

The initiatives, part of a report entitled "Building Jobs: A Blueprint for the New New York," were crafted by the Building Trades Employers' Association. The report presents the first in-depth analysis of the professional, managerial and administrative construction employment market in the New York City region.

Among major construction projects anticipated to begin in the coming years are the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn, the Hudson Yards Plan and the Brooklyn arena.

Associations Award Scholarships

Two industry organizations awarded more than $100,000 in scholarship money to college students.

At its annual luncheon at the Union League Club, the ACE Mentor Program awarded 54 scholarships totaling more than $75,000 to graduates of the 2004 program.

The American Council of Engineering Companies of New York awarded $27,500 in scholarship money to five female and five male undergraduate engineering students attending New York State colleges and universities.

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