This week’s guessing game in Santo Domingo: where will the Olympic village ("Villa") for the 2003 Pan American Games ("PanAm Games") be built? Last week rumors started flying that Campus #2 of the National University Pedro Henr?quez Ure?a (UNPHU) on John F. Kennedy Avenue would be the site when bulldozers and other heavy equipment appeared on campus and began clearing the area. [A similar incident at the Plaza de la Salud last summer sparked rumors that the Villa would be located there, ultimately denied by the Public Works Ministry and the bulldozers departed.] Yesterday the President of the PanAm Games Organizing Committee, Jos? Joaqu?n Puello, admitted that the UNPHU site is one of those under serious consideration. This led Listin Diario to report the UNPHU site as a near-certainty. However, an UNPHU spokesman told Hoy that UNPHU grounds "are not up for sale," but that UNPHU would study any proposal made by the government. Puello says that other options under study include (1) land facing the Juan Pablo Duarte Olympic Center between 27 de Febrero Avenue and Enrique S?nchez Valverde street; (2) land currently occupied by a nails factory between avenues M?ximo G?mez and Jos? Ortega y Gasset; (3) land occupied by the Quinto Centenario race track; (4) land along the Avenida Jacobo Majluta.
