Officials to occupy three floors of upscale extended-stay apartments at the Level building
Bruce Constantineau
Sun
USA House will be located on Seymour Street in Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
The U.S. Olympic Committee will take over the first three floors of a new upscale extended-stay apartment building on Seymour Street to use as its USA House Olympic headquarters during the 2010 Games.
The organization will occupy about 30,000 square feet of the Level building at 1022 Seymour for working and hospitality purposes during the Games.
Chris Evans, executive vice-president of building owner Onni Group, confirmed Thursday the USOC will take over space in Level starting in January.
“I can confirm they are taking the commercial portion of the building for the Olympic period,” he said.
A USOC official confirmed the lease, but would not confirm the exact address of the building involved.
The building opened this summer with 187 fully furnished suites available for rental periods of a month or longer.
The suites cater to business travellers, with amenities like Wi-Fi, cable TV, fully equipped kitchens, air conditioning and in-suite laundry facilities.
The suites are available for monthly rates ranging from about $3,000 to $4,500, but Evans said those rates will rise to between $8,000 and $15,000 a month during the Olympics.
Many potential clients have expressed a strong interest in staying in the building during the Olympics, he said, adding he expects it will be filled with people staying for two months or longer over the Games period.
“If we were just [leasing] them for a month during the Games, we’d be full already three times over,” he said.
“But it makes more sense for us to not just do one-month stays for February 2010. Lots of groups have business needs for longer than that.”
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