Ruth Fremson/The New York Times  An Olympic stadium never rose over Hudson Yards, but several towers have been built nearby.  Now, though, a vibrant neighborhood is rising in the area where the Olympic stadium and complex would have stood on the Far West Side of Manhattan. As a result, officials, developers and urban planners are embracing an unlikely notion: the Olympic bid’s defeat may have been one of the best things to happen for the city’s growth in recent memory.  The Bloomberg administration repurposed many elements of the bid to create Hudson Yards, the commercial and residential district taking shape west of Eighth Avenue, a once-desolate area of factories, lofts and parking lots between 30th and 43rd Streets.  Fifteen sleek residential towers have sprung up since 2005, the year that the Olympic bid was rejected, and a dozen hotels have muscled their way onto these blocks.  This month, one of the city’s biggest developers, the Related Companies, announced tentative plans to erect a 51-story office tower on the spot where the Olympic stadium would have stood, with Coach, the luxury retailer, as the anchor tenant.  No one expects the Far West Side to look like the office canyons on Avenue of the Americas anytime soon. Another deep recession in the next few years could undermine nascent plans.  Still, city officials predict that within two decades, Hudson Yards could have more office space than Baltimore or Portland, Ore., and as many apartments as Stamford, Conn.  An extension of the No. 7 subway line from Times Square to 34th Street and 11th Avenue, at a cost of more than $2 billion, is two-thirds complete and set to open in December 2013. Work is to begin early next year on a new tree-lined boulevard between 10th and 11th Avenues. Both of these projects were originally conceived for the 2012 Olympics.  Some planners pointed out that if the Games had been held in New York, the city most likely would have had to cover billions of dollars in cost overruns. It also would have been stuck with many underused sports facilities, including the stadium.  “It’s ironic that the Hudson Yards was born out of the loss of the Olympic bid,” said Jeffrey S. Katz, who owns three large development sites in the district. “At the end of the day, it turns out to be better for the city that the Olympic stadium is not there. We’re building a new, vital part of the central business district.  “Imagine what a big stadium would’ve been like. It would have dominated the area, and not necessarily in a good way.”  The rejuvenation of the neighborhood and the expansion of the business district could be among Mr. Bloomberg’s most enduring legacies, achieving a goal that eluded Mayors Edward I. Koch, David N. Dinkins and Rudolph W. Giuliani. Each failed to remake this industrial area after the shipping piers disappeared and the garment district withered.  Even Mr. Bloomberg, who allowed that he “hates to lose,” said that in retrospect, the failure of the Olympic bid may have been a blessing for the city.  “Given what happened to the economy, it would’ve been tough to raise all the money,” Mr. Bloomberg said in an interview.  But, he added, his administration pushed ahead with many of the projects and land-use changes that were contained in the Olympic proposal, not just on the Far West Side, but in other parts of the city as well.  “We thought the Olympics would be the catalyst to get a lot of things that many people thought the city needed,” he said. “In fact, many got done” anyway.  From the day he took office in 2002, Mr. Bloomberg made the Olympics, as well as the redevelopment of the Far West Side, a signature initiative.  The proposal’s chief architect, Daniel L. Doctoroff, a former deputy mayor under Mr. Bloomberg, combined a series of new or refurbished sports facilities across the five boroughs with plans for the redevelopment of waterfront industrial areas.  The rezoning of the West Side for commercial towers was necessary for New York’s survival as an international center of finance, media and communications, Mr. Doctoroff and others argued, because Manhattan was running out of room for development.  But the Olympic plan was also tied to an unpopular proposal for a $2 billion stadium and an expanded convention center nearby.  While Mr. Bloomberg lost the Olympic bid, he won the rezoning effort in 2005, with plans for up to 24 million square feet of office space and more than 13,000 apartments.
Remnants of a bid to host the 2012 Olympics have helped jump-start construction at Hudson Yards, which could soon have more office space than all of Baltimore, city officials said.