One of my big features at The American Lawyer was a look at how Toronto was using public-private partnerships to prepare for the 2015 Pan Am Games. The biggest selling point was that P3s would ensure that projects came in on-budget and on-time.
With five months left before the start of the games, it looks like the on-budget part isn’t going to happen. Unless spending 80% of the budget with five months left and construction yet to be completed was part of the plan. When I initially reported the story, I was more concerned about whether or not P3s could really keep the Pan Am preparations under-budget and under-deadline (the article ended up becoming more about the lawyers and law firms doing the work). I guess now we know that massive sporting events (a notorious sink-hole of sunken costs) are their own forces of nature.
