The group trying to bring the 2024 Olympics to Boston released the most detailed look yet at its bid for the Summer Games on Monday, unveiling a $4.6 billion plan it says would create jobs and housing, expand the tax base and leave behind an improved city with a $210 million surplus.
The announcement was designed to answer critics who say the privately funded Boston 2024 has withheld details of the bid to prevent the public from assessing whether the games could be staged, as promised, without the need for taxpayer money.
Bid chairman Steve Pagliuca, a co-owner of the Boston Celtics, said “Bid 2.0” is a more in-depth version of the “proof of concept” that convinced the USOC to pick Boston in January over competing proposals from Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington.
“This has been a transition from a conceptual plan,” Pagliuca said. “We’ve now done the ‘little-picture’ thinking. We think we’ve made the major leaps.”
The bid has stumbled since getting the nod from the USOC, with local opposition and low poll numbers forcing organizers to spread some venues across the state to gain political support the bid couldn’t muster inside the city.