July the 27th, 2023 – Tito’s Villa was recently on the state radar, and now its attention is on activating the so-called “dead capital” of the Kumrovec Memorial House (Spomen dom Kumrovec).
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marija Brnic writes, about a month and a half ago, the Ministries of State Property and Culture and the Museum of Hrvatsko Zagorje and the Kumrovec Municipality handed over the residential part of the complex – Tito’s Villa. At the last session, the CERP Administrative Council made a decision to also start looking for a solution for the Kumrovec Memorial House.
This decision implies the termination of the rights of the company Kumrovec d.o.o. which has been managing the Kumrovec Memorial House complex for decades now.
All obligations, claims and debts must be dealt with before anything can move forward
The company was transferred into CERP’s portfolio at the end of last year, and until then it was under the management of the Ministry of Science and Education, and it is precisely from that budget that the company generated its sole source of income. According to data from Poslovna.hr, last year, that income amounted to slightly less than 133,000 euros, and the largest part of expenses related to the payment of employee salaries. The company also realised 99,000 euros in losses.
Last year, there were a total of six employees in the company, and their net salaries amounted to an average of 854 euros per month. These were employees who performed administrative and facility maintenance tasks, lawn maintenance, and so forth.
The condition for carrying out the abbreviated procedure for the termination of the company, as prescribed by the law on companies, was the fulfillment of all obligations towards its employees and other creditors. It must also be confirmed that there are no outstanding claims, and judging by the decision of the Administrative Council of CERP, this requirement has been satisfied.
The former Yugoslav “political school”
The company’s property – congress and catering/hospitality and accommodation facilities that haven’t been in operation for a long time – will continue to be disposed of correctly by the Ministry of Spatial Planning, Construction and State Property. That same ministry will eventually decide how to put all of that back into some sort of operation. In addition to the Kumrovec Memorial House, the ministry also manages another real estate potential in Kumrovec, including former Political School, which it offered for sale a few years ago.
This will bring all those who are familiar with the saga back to a well-known case in which a Chinese investor called Jiang Yu expressed interest in the former school, but in the end she didn’t prove to be a serious buyer. These well-known buildings are otherwise quite neglected and require significant investments in order to put them back into some form of operation.
Slovenian cooperation
For the time being, the clearest situation can be seen regarding Tito’s Villa, a building spanning over 2,000 square metres, initially built as a hotel back in 1947. The mayor of the Kumrovec Municipality, Robert Šplajt, intends to turn it into a cultural and tourist centre.
Šplajt is very involved in this project, for which he plans to secure cash through European Union (EU) funds jointly with some Slovenian partners. These are the municipality of Bistrica ob Sotli and the City of Rogaška Slatina. They have already jointly prepared everything for the application for the funds, and they estimate that they will need around two million euros in total.
In the Municipality of Kumrovec itself, they calculate that the renovated residence could open its doors in three to four years. The Municipality of Kumrovec is not interested in taking over the management of the Kumrovec Memorial House and its associated facilities, but it is, of course, interested in finding an investor who will know how to use its potential to the fullest.
