A wave of investments is set to change the look of the Italian city of Bologna. An injection of some EUR 22 bn over the next ten years will bring new life to Bologna’s dismissed areas in the inner city and to its infrastructure, in particular to the railway line connecting Italy’s financial centre, Milan, to Bologna and the south of the country. Giuseppina Gualtieri, managing director of the local development agency PromoBologna, says that such a flow of development projects has not been seen in the city in the last two decades.
A wave of investments is set to change the look of the Italian city of Bologna. An injection of some EUR 22 bn over the next ten years will bring new life to Bologna’s dismissed areas in the inner city and to its infrastructure, in particular to the railway line connecting Italy’s financial centre, Milan, to Bologna and the south of the country. Giuseppina Gualtieri, managing director of the local development agency PromoBologna, says that such a flow of development projects has not been seen in the city in the last two decades.
Marketed by PromoBologna, the new developments will be launched this year at MIPIM to the international audience, in a move aimed at widening the window of possible investors. At the fair the Bologna municipality, together with other state-owned firms appearing under the umbrella-name of BolognaSystem, will be looking for private parties willing to join the projects, which include the redevelopment of the central railway station and a EUR 650 mln extension of the airport. Furthermore, plans are to convert 19 former military barracks of a total 835,000 m2 into buildings for public and commercial use, as well as to extend the Freight Village logistics hub in the city with a further 2 million m2. Another area being refurbished is the Viale Berti Pichat site, home to the head office of Italy’s leading energy and water services firm Hera.
Covering an area of over 65,000 m2, the Berti Pichat land will be redeveloped to include a new Hera headquarters, additional offices, a hotel and a three-storey underground car park with 350 parking spaces. Hera, the owner of the site, is expected to launch a bidding contest for the sale of the project by the summer. Through its exposure at MIPIM the company hopes that its masterplan will draw attention from Europe’s major property groups. In exchange for the construction of its new head office on an area of 20,000 m2, the multi-utility company will sell the remaining 45,000 m2 parcel of land to the winner of the contest.
Another major regeneration plan for Bologna is the redevelopment of the central railway station that will include new station-related services of 42,000 m2 as well as new offices, shops and hotels for a total 120,000 m2 of space. The bidders for the design of the scheme have recently been short-listed to just 12 architects coming from as many as eight countries. They include French architectural studio Jean Nouvel, The Netherlands’ UNStudio and Japan’s Arata Isozaki. Ferrovie dello Stato (FS), the state-controlled railway group owning the site, is set to unveil the final winner of the bidding by the summer. Subsequently, FS will set up a special company open to private capital for the carrying out of construction works on the 32-hectare land.
PromoBologna’s Gualtieri says that the investments for the real estate projects are expected to reach some EUR 6.5 bn over the next ten years. Another EUR 15.5 bn has already been granted by the Italian government to improve infrastructure, in particular the Bologna-Florence express motorway as well as the new high-speed railway line. This should half travel-time between Bologna and Milan from two to one hour and between Bologna and Florence to just to 30 minutes, she notes. ‘These projects were only sketched when we went to MIPIM for the first time last year’, she says. ‘We got more than a 100 contacts for them in 2007, and 2008 will bring us a step further’.
