The company which was supposed to lead the project will be liquidated, but the city authorities say this is good news.
The liquidation of Terme Zagreb, a joint company founded by the City of Zagreb and the INA oil company in order to develop the project of thermal spas in the Blato neighborhood, will not jeopardize the implementation of the project, claim the city authorities. The City of Zagreb is the owner of the land and still plans to start the construction according to the public-private partnership (PPP) model, reports Poslovni.hr on January 19, 2018.
After the decision to liquidate the company, eight years after it was founded, was passed by INA in December, the City Assembly will confirm it at the session scheduled for 30 January. However, the city representatives say this is good news for the future of Zagreb Terme.
Mirka Jozić, head of the City Office for Economy, said that the city, in cooperation with the Austrian consultancy Oberer Consulting, prepared a feasibility study of the thermal spa complex in 2015. “The study is a developmental tool that projects conditions, markets, and potentials, and will be a key element in deciding on the start of the project implementation. It proposes the construction of two ‘hills,’ a larger ‘Wellness hill’ on seven floors with a garage, and a smaller ‘Fun Hill,’ according to the modular development method. The hills would be partly surrounded by natural and artificial water surfaces, and the water would also flow from the “Source of Life” that will be situated at the top,” Jozić explained, adding that the final visualization would be obtained through a public tender.
In the PPP model, the city would provide the land, part of the financing and infrastructure, while the investment partner should be a respected company in the field of modern thermal spas and take over the further development of the project, including finances, construction, and stable long-term business operations.
The next step is the preparation and adoption of the urban planning map for the Blato thermal spas and the preparation of two public competitions (an urban-architectural tender and a tender for the selection of the investment partner). There will be a lot of work in this phase, since the project is facing significant infrastructure deficiencies, such as poor traffic connections and a long-distance electric power transmission lines which are currently situated there.
The city sees a series of financing opportunities, from the EU Competitiveness and Cohesion framework programme to the idea of building a geothermal energy power plant as a low-carbon renewable energy supplier for heating the spas. The Law on Investment Promotion also provides several measures, from tax breaks to support for job creation and education, and there is also an option that the project could be included in the list of strategic projects which would speed up administrative procedures.
Translated from Poslovni.hr.
