17/02/2005 00:00
TW
0
Staff Reporter THE Palma City Council will be accepting bids from companies who wish to manage and maintain the future Congress Hall that will be built in Palma. The winning bid will be responsible for managing the building for a maximum period of 50 years.

Once the concession period has ended the Congress Hall will “exclusively” be passed over to the local Government to manage and maintain, said the Deputy Mayor for Urban Areas, Rodrigo de Santos, at a press conference yesterday.

In June a public exhibition of the eight potential architectural projects for the Congress Hall will begin, said De Santos. One of the architects bidding for this project is the well-known Sir Richard Rogers, a British architect.

This public exhibition showing all the projects will help to stir-up the public debate that is in process, concerning the building which will become the Congress Hall, said De Santos, who thinks that the residents' opinion will only be taken into account when the jury have to decide an alternative winner.

Furthermore, Palma City Council is intending to build a centre in Polígono de Levante, which will be modern and project the commerce of the city. This will bring together the use of new technologies and exhibitions, in a similar way as has been done at Salón Gaudí and Cibeles footbridge.

The Council also provisonally approved the Maritime Front project yesterday during the Urban Areas Management Meeting. The project includes the introduction of a new modification, which will decrease the amount of lucrative building fronts to 369'000 square metres, so that they can increase the amount of space for a utilities building of 103'000 square metres.

After these initial proceedings, the Town Hall will now resubmit the project to the Council of Majorca, so that they can see the definitive Congress Hall building plans, as well as all the modifications that have been applied and included thanks to changes made in a agreement signed by the Town Hall and the Balearic Housing Institue (Ibavi).

This agreement will allow for the development of new public flats in Palma with ground floor space of no more than 50'000 square metres. These flats will be allowed to be constructed in Coll den Rabassa, la Ribera, Son Serrs Parera and Es Pilarí.

Also, this agreement allows for the construction of the new Congress Hall and the building of a new Town Hall department which will house all the municipal services and public companies.

Near to these aforementioned areas, new buildings for the Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry for Public Works will also be built, said Rodrigo De Santos.