VANOC planning massive post-Games furniture sale

[grammafreddy]

VANOC planning massive post-Games furniture sale


http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/loca ... lumbiaHome

By: ctvbc.ca

Date: Monday Feb. 22, 2010 7:04 PM PT

The Olympics, like all big one-time events, have temporary infrastructure – but what will happen to it all after the Games? CTV Consumer Reporter Chris Olsen is on your side sniffing out post-Olympic bargains.

It takes thousands of people behind the scenes to put on the Games, and everyone needs a place to sit down and work.

Once the Olympics are over, it's Jeremy Dodd's job to find a new home for the furniture.

Dodd says throughout the month of March roughly 15,000 pieces of near-new office furniture will be rounded up in the Metro Vancouver.

"We'll have about 1400 desks, probably about 1,000 book shelves and 1,000 storage cabinets, all matching the desks," he said. "About 7,000 chairs coming in, a couple thousand folding tables and all sorts of office furniture."

Most of it will be barely used – including chairs sat in for about one month. And the price?

"We've got desks that would normally retail for $350 that we'll be looking to sell for $75 or $80," Dodd said. "Chairs that would cost $150 will be going out at $30 to $40. We'll be pricing it very aggressively because there is a lot of product to move."

The sale is scheduled to begin in early-to-mid April. As a legacy of the Games, it might not be the Olympic Oval – but it might just be more valuable to some of B.C.'s small businesses.

With a report from CTV British Columbia's Chris Olsen

Well fercryin'inthesink - Split it up and send it out to all regions of the province to give away to people who need it or want it.

We paid for it already - VANOC can quit double-dipping us.

Man, these guys are ballsy. (and not in a good way)

[LoneWolf_53]

So you think recouping some of the expenses by liquidating assets that are no longer required is a bad thing?

VANOC is an entity created to deal with the Olympics so if they can get money back to pay some bills why not?

Giving virtually new stuff away isn't exactly what I'd view as being prudent administration.

[Darkre]

So Vanoc trying to recoup some of the money they have spent is a bad thing?

[dieseluphammerdown]

Sounds like the first steps of bankruptcy, sell off any and all assets.!!

[LoneWolf_53]

To the biased, blind, and narrow minded, yes, it would.

[NAB]

LOL. I see nothing wrong with that. I know of an entire small shopping mall on one of the Gulf Islands that was originally a Pavilion at some major event (Expo I think it was). Flogging it off as is where is cheap made much more economic sense than going to additional expense to dismantle it and ship it "home".

I suppose even the provincial government could get some good buys on stuff they may need rather than buying new. But I suspect a lot of it will be snapped up fairly quickly by insiders before the general public gets a shot at it ;-) Getting some of the dollars originally spent back where possible helps the bottom line, although I suspect this particular issue isn't a huge budgetary item in the overall scheme of things.

Nab

[hellomynameis]

This is pretty much the norm for any government/public enterprise, they sell off their surplus.

BC has the "Asset Investment Recovery" service, where I've bought a desk, half a dozen bookshelves and an old computer (they make excellent servers) at very reasonable prices.

VANOC can quit double-dipping us.

Exactly! It's, as if they have shoved the business end of a large pistol deep into your mouth and forced you to buy truck loads of hardly used shelving units under duress... [/sarcasm]