(Paris) Thousands of mattresses, pillows, tables, sports equipment… the Olympic village of Saint-Denis which welcomed the athletes of the Paris Olympics is almost already half dismantled and its furniture is heading for its second life, detailed Thursday the organizers.
The Games were a success, with 12.1 million tickets sold, Olympics and Paralympics combined, compared to a previous record of 11 million, and real fervor from the public.
And the Olympic village, located north of Paris in the Seine-St-Denis department – which has 1.6 million inhabitants, a third of whom live below the poverty line – will soon start its second life, notably by welcoming permanent housing.
From the summer of 2025, some 2,800 homes will accommodate 6,000 new residents, and will also see the creation of two school groups, offices for 6,000 employees, shops, etc.
For now, furniture and mattresses from the Olympic village will be donated in particular to the charity Emmaüs. “54,000 pieces of furniture”, “9000 mattresses”, “11,000 pillows”, explained a representative of the CMA-CGM foundation, Marion Dupuy during a press videoconference, which will ensure transport logistics via 420 trucks.
“This represents one to two years of donations,” explained Gwendoline Lafarge, Olympic project manager for Emmaüs Défi, citing 1,700 quilts.
The Japanese company Airweave, which supplied the cardboard box springs and modular mattresses for the athletes’ beds, recalled that in total some 16,000 mattresses will go to the army, the Paris Opera school or even at Tsuji Hotel School.
The village, which welcomed more than 14,000 people at the height of summer, closed on September 10 and the keys must be handed over to the developers at the end of October, recalled its director, Laurent Michaud.
It is also necessary to dismantle temporary infrastructure such as the reception center or the multi-faith center in the Olympic village. “800 people are currently working” on the dismantling, with a flow of 40 trucks daily, and more unusual “a team of 10 people is taking inventory of the 45,000 keys” of the village, said Mr. Michaud.
For his part, Pierre Cifarelli, director of a solidarity company based in Aubervilliers, will recover construction materials from the village and “find a new use” for them, in particular “several tons of metal structure”, “acoustic shade cloths”. » offered to a company which creates “outdoor beanbags”, or even “thousands of square meters of wooden floors”.
The developers, who have already started marketing the apartments, have some redevelopment to do.
The Olympic works delivery company (Solideo), which coordinates this “legacy” phase, is counting on “14 months to ensure the full reconversion of the urban project”, with public spaces and the transformation of buildings, explained its manager Henri Specht.
The first residents of this new district “should arrive in the fall of 2025,” he said.