Six foreign companies will participate today in the tender for the construction of eight towers of 20 floors each to lodge the athletes coming for the Pan Am Games to be held in Santo Domingo in 2003. The bidding companies are based in the US, Canada, France and Venezuela. The towers will go up diagonally across from the Juan Pablo Duarte Olympic Center. Presidential candidate of the PRD, Hipólito Mejía, who supported the bid for the games, has opposed the construction of the towers, suggesting athletes should be lodged in already existing facilities, such as city hotels. Mejía is the most likely candidate to win the 2000 presidential election. Games held in US, Argentina and Canada used existing facilities, such as university dormitories and military bases, even if they were two hours away from the competition centers. The Dominican government is putting the land, but the investment in the towers is reportedly to be made by the private companies that will recover the investment by later selling the apartments.
