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Planned $5M facility is ‘as big as it gets’ for USA Luge

LAKE PLACID – USA Luge officials hope to complete an unprecedented renovation and expansion of their facilities here in fewer than two years. If they get their way, the facility will physically connect with the U.S. Olympic Training Center.

“It’s creating a state of the art complex for USA Luge,” the organization’s executive director, Jim Leahy, said Wednesday. “In order to compete at an international level, this project that we are going to undertake is going to put the U.S. almost on the same plateau as the strongest nation in luge today, which is Germany.

“So for us, this is as big as it gets.”

Leahy said USA Luge wants the facility at the OTC property, around the corner from its current home at 57 Church St. The state Olympic Regional Development Authority owns the property the OTC sits on, and Leahy said ORDA and USA Luge are currently in the process of finalizing a conceptual design and site for the facility.

At ORDA’s board meeting last week, its president and CEO Ted Blazer showed early renderings of what a new luge facility at the OTC might look like. He said USA Luge and ORDA are also considering the Olympic Sports Complex at Mount Van Hoevenberg and the Olympic Jumping Complex as other potential sites for the facility.

“We want to finish some time before the Olympics in 2018. That’s our goal,” Blazer said last week.

The facility will be funded by the $5 million for capital improvements Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state provided through ORDA in May. The money coincided with USA Luge’s decision to keep its headquarters in Lake Placid for the next five years.

Leahy described the project as three-fold: construction of a new push-start track facility, an upgrade to USA Luge’s administrative offices and headquarters, and a “serious” upgrade to USA Luge’s technical sled-building facility.

The new push-start track is at the core of the project. Leahy said it would be 50 feet wide and 500 feet in length, compared to USA Luge’s current 15-by-100 foot track.

“There will be no other type of facility in the world that will be like this one,” Leahy said.

Leahy said Olympic Sports Complex track manager Tony Carlino and USA Luge’s coaches will look at tracks such as the luge facility at Calgary’s Canada Olympic Park as part of their research, settling on a conceptual design soon. That final design will dictate the final cost of the facility, but Leahy said USA Luge intends to use all $5 million allocated for the project. He added that the current facility cost $1.2 million to build in 1991.

Leahy said the focus of the project is luge-specific, but a “dual-type facility” that would also serve bobsled athletes is also being looked into.

“It’s the reason the track is the length that it is right now on paper,” Leahy said. “It will all come down to dollars, and if we can get what we need for luge, our start facility, administration offices, the sled-building facility, and then there is still room to create this track that will be utilized by both sports, we’re all in favor of that. But I think everybody understands the project is to facilitate USA Luge’s needs first and foremost.”

The bigger start track would enable lugers to practice settling into their sleds along with their starts. Due to the current track’s length, settling is not possible.

Leahy said much of USA Luge’s sled building is currently conducted under a tent outside of the facility. The construction of the new push track would let USA Luge use the space that currently houses the old track for the new sled-building area as well as expanded offices, lounges, ancillary rooms and a possible Hall of Fame.

The expanded facility and its connection with the OTC would also create a “center point” for tourists interested in visiting the OTC who could now use USA Luge’s facilities for recreation.

“Here is another opportunity for ORDA to take another Olympic venue in the OTC and create additional tourism out of the new facility,” Leahy said.

A number of engineering and environmental factors still have to be cleared for USA Luge to be able to build at the OTC site, including a look at the area’s flood plains and approval from the state Adirondack Park Agency.

“Until we get into the actual nuts and bolts design of the track, we have got to be fairly open with three different areas,” he said.” Right now we’ve seen horizontal designs of the facility. We have got to get a vertical model, and we are in that stage now.”

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