Everything but the kitchen sink up for grabs
Pan Am organizers selling furniture and equipment, to be picked up once event ends
When the Pan Am Games are over, let the fire sale begin.
“There is no kitchen sink but there is a little bit of everything else,” Molly Nations, marketing manager for the Alabama-based auction house Gov-Deals, which has a Toronto office, told the Star on Wednesday.
After the 6,100 athletes have left the athletes’ village — 1,285 apartments and 2,685 bedrooms — the furniture is out the door. Pan Am runs from July 7-26 and Parapan Am from Aug. 7-15.
There are thousands of items including new couches, night tables, folding chairs, bean bag chairs, Maytag washers and dryers, clothes drying racks, office desks and full-length mirrors on the block already — not to be picked up until after the games — for a fraction of the original cost.
If you are in the market for lots of 80 three-seat sofas then you are in luck.
The sports equipment, which cost about $10 million, will be given to national, provincial and community sporting groups rather than being sold.
Pan Am Games chief financial offi- cer Barb Anderson said TO2015 hopes to bring in about $2.5 million from the sales of furniture, for the most part from the athletes’ village, as well as other equipment.
“If you think of it, these are assets that have been used for a maximum, maybe, of five to six weeks. So, it’s a pretty good deal . . . our objective is to get fair market value,” she said.
Undoubtedly a popular item will be the Pan Am torches.
They are being sold separately to the torchbearers first and then to the public.
Besides the furniture, other items will also be for sale, including medical supplies.
Anderson said that if items don’t sell, “that’s when we will look to community organizations, charitable organizations and things like that to finally find a home for all our assets.”