This is the back side of the base for the flame cauldron used during the XIII Olympic Winter Games in 1980, as seen on Thursday, April 27. It is located between the Lake Placid Central School District athletic fields and the North Elba Show Grounds. Town of North Elba officials are looking to restore the base, structure and cauldron and have elaborate plans to turn this area into a 1980 Winter Olympic Opening Ceremony Welcome Center. The inside of the base is being used to store items for the athletic fields, such as fencing. (News photo — Andy Flynn)

LAKE PLACID — Town of North Elba officials are working to rehabilitate the base of the flame tower cauldron used for the opening ceremony of the XIII Olympic Winter Games in 1980.

Meanwhile, there’s an ambitious plan to develop the land around the cauldron into a “welcome center.” Minus a building, the plan calls for the cauldron — located between the North Elba Show Grounds and the Lake Placid Central School District athletic fields — to be the centerpiece of an attraction that would interpret the site and its importance to Lake Placid’s Olympic legacy.

The cauldron sits atop a three-legged steel and aluminum tower — essentially a sculpture — which is placed on a concrete base. The gray, corduroy-type bricks surrounding the base is now peeling off. Plus, the paverstone area in front of the cauldron is overgrown with grass, and the four whiskey barrel flower pots along the driveway are falling apart.

“We’re excited to finally give that thing a little bit of TLC,” North Elba town Supervisor Derek Doty said on Friday, April 28.

Earlier this year, town highway department employees removed some of the cedar trees that had grown into the base. And Doty said he’s asked former village employee Greg Graham — who put the masonry around the base — to give his thoughts on the logistics and potential cost of fixing the structure.

Here is an image of the proposed 1980 Winter Olympic Opening Ceremony Welcome Center between the North Elba Show Grounds (foreground) and the Lake Placid Central School District’s athletic fields. As the name implies, this was the location of the opening ceremony for the XIII Olympic Winter Games, which was held on Feb. 13, 1980. The flame cauldron is still located at the site. Designers at Stantec prepared these plans in January 2022 for the town of North Elba. The proposal includes: a restored flame cauldron, tower and base, with a metal arch behind the cauldron to emulate the opening ceremony’s band shell (no longer there), and pavement mapping to show the relationship to other Olympic venues; an Olympic ring sculpture with a three-tiered medals platform in front and a set of flagpoles in the back (for Olympic, New York, Lake Placid and event flags); Olympic ring arches on either side of the row of flags (just like the ones in the opening ceremony); a row of flags representing the 37 countries that competed in the 1980 Winter Olympics; a hand-held torch “selfie-sculpture” for photo opportunities; a bench at the existing viewing platform, where visitors can see Whiteface Mountain, the ski jumps and the cauldron; and a relocated horse wash station. (Provided art)

“Then the town board is likely to have me go out for a few bids,” Doty said.

The Town Council has already allocated $20,000 from its American Rescue Plan (ARPA) funds to start rehabilitating the base.

Looking at the front of the cauldron, from the show grounds, it looks like the base is a simple concrete box. But looking at it from the athletic fields, it’s clear that this is a little building. There’s a set of green doors that open up (they’re falling apart as well) to reveal steel beams holding up the tower, and the dirt-floor room is being used to store items for the fields, such as fencing.

Doty said — due to the challenges of funding — that the rehabilitation would likely be accomplished in phases.

Chipping the old stone off the base and applying a new facing would be the first phase. Doty said he would like to have the base redone by this fall.

The 52nd and final torch runner Charles Kerr, of Arizona, holds his torch high after lighting the cauldron on Feb. 13, 1980, during the opening ceremony of the XIII Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid. (Provided photo — Lake Placid Olympic Museum)

Getting a metal professional to fix some of the portions of the tower could be the second phase.

“We’re going to stay on the course and keep moving ahead,” Doty said.

Doty has also asked the Lake Placid/North Elba Community Development Commission to help with rehabilitating the site. When detailing the commission’s 2023 goals earlier this spring, Chair Lori Fitzgerald said this project was on their list. Although the assistance needed is currently unclear, she said, the Lake Placid Arts Alliance — a subcommittee of the development commission — discussed at a recent meeting the possibility of installing a park around the cauldron.

A park-like plan, however, has already been drafted.

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The 1980 Olympic flame tower is seen here at the North Elba Show Grounds on Thursday, April 27. Visitors can see the stumps of cedar trees that town employees removed earlier this year to help improve the site. (News photo — Andy Flynn)

“Welcome center”

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A concept design plan for the proposed 1980 Winter Olympic Opening Ceremony Welcome Center — between the show grounds and the athletic fields — was detailed in a 12-page document dated January 2022. It was drafted by Stantec, an engineering firm based in South Burlington, Vermont.

The opening ceremony for the XIII Olympic Winter Games was held on Feb. 13, 1980, at this site. The cauldron was the centerpiece, located in front of a temporary band shell. After the 52nd and final torch runner — Dr. Charles Kerr of Arizona — entered the arena, he ran up the red-carpeted steps and lit the cauldron at the base of the tower. The flame was then raised slowly to the top, where it stayed until being extinguished on Feb. 24, the last day of the Games.

The welcome center proposal includes:

The flame in the 1980 Olympic cauldron burns on Feb. 14, 2020, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the XIII Olympic Winter Games. (News photo — Andy Flynn)

– a restored flame cauldron tower and base;

– a metal arch behind the cauldron to emulate the opening ceremony’s band shell;

– pavement mapping to show the relationship to other Olympic venues

– a three-tiered medals platform — on the opposite side of the driveway, where a horse wash station is currently located;

– an Olympic ring sculpture between the medals platform and a set of flagpoles — for Olympic, New York, Lake Placid and event flags;

– a row of flags representing the 37 countries that competed in the 1980 Winter Olympics;

– Olympic ring arches on either side of the row of flags — just like the ones in the opening ceremony;

– a hand-held torch “selfie-sculpture” for photo opportunities;

– a bench at the existing viewing platform, where visitors can see Whiteface Mountain, the ski jumps and the cauldron; and

– new fencing and a new walkway from the existing viewing platform and the cauldron.

The horse wash station would be relocated nearby.

The two current plaques would remain, and interpretive photos showing the opening ceremony would be added.

Although the plan calls for exploring methods to easily light the cauldron with a fuel gas source, Doty said it may be possible to retrofit the cauldron with LED lights, as was done for the 2023 FISU Winter World University Games cauldron.

The 1980 cauldron has been lit to mark special occasions — such as the 10th anniversary of the Games in 1990, the 25th anniversary in 2005 and the 40th anniversary in 2020.

The cauldron has also been lit in solidarity during other Winter Olympics, such at the 1992 Games in Albertville, France, and the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia.

Decorative lighting for the site and the base and tower are listed in the plan, as is placing a cover on the cauldron “made especially to look and serve as lighted burning torch.”

Other design elements would be to add more benches, repair the existing viewing platform, erect a New York state historic marker and find a way for visitors to listen to the opening ceremony speech given by the Rev. J. Bernard Fell, president of the Lake Placid Olympic Organizing Committee.

Read Fell’s speech here.

Although no project cost is listed in the document, Doty said, “That is a very, very expensive idea which hopefully some day could come to fruition.”

At this time, he calls the funding “unattainable.”