The Municipality of Tirana has opened the tender worth EUR 61.1 million for the design and reconstruction of buildings damaged by the earthquake in the area of Kombinat, Tirana.
The tender opened on 1 October and all interested foreign or domestic companies have just 11 days to submit the documents. The winning company must design both the implementation project and the reconstruction of the buildings and several other processes.
11 days is an unusually short period for a project of this size and nature, especially for foreign companies.
Among other things, the tender is being conducted with a restricted procedure and not with an open tender. This means that many companies may show interest in being part of the project and they will then negotiate directly with the municipality for the prices and facilities they will build.
According to AIS, promoter of the Open Procurement Albania database, by selecting this procedure, the municipality has bypassed the Law on Public Procurement and by setting deadlines and modalities according to the Normative Act with the force of Law No. 9, on Coping with the Consequences of Natural Disaster.
As Exit News wrote earlier, a part of the existing neighbourhood of Kombinat in Tirana will be demolished to build a new neighbourhood called KombinArt. At least 50 low-rise buildings built during the communist regime will be demolished.
On the vacated land will be built 4-5 storey buildings with a total construction area of about 1.5 million square meters which can accommodate over 21 thousand inhabitants, a shopping center of the New Bazaar type, two museums and the University of Architecture .
The first phase of the new construction will house about 2292 families living in Kombinat, whose homes were damaged by the November 26 earthquake. This group of families will occupy only one third of the total apartments while the rest will be sold to other citizens. The details of this part have not been made public yet, how the apartments will be sold and which institution or company will manage the process.
During the presentation, Prime Minister Edi Rama and Mayor of Tirana Erion Veliaj stressed that the neighborhood would be rebuilt after being severely damaged by the earthquake. But in fact this project was planned in 2018 in the master plan “TR2030” as one of the five new neighborhoods of Tirana. The 26 November earthquake merely provided them with a catalyst to move the project forward.
The master plan and strategic document of the Municipality of Tirana foresees:
The Kombinat area is one of the five projects foreseen in the Tirana 2030 Master Plan for redevelopment, together with Farka, Kamza, Lapraka, and Misto Mamem.
The strategic document of the Municipality of Tirana, for 2019-2022 envisages the creation of the “Pole of Kombinat”, which will include “BID Kombinat, a public-private partnership for an improved physical environment and more business opportunities (New Bazaar model)”.
The master plan specifies that the municipality will tender the development of the area and private companies can benefit from construction bonuses, depending on the quality of the submitted project.
The redevelopment of old buildings or private houses will be carried out thanks to a cooperation between the municipality and the builders. It will be the municipality that will create the conditions for facilitating the transfer of property from the old residents to the builders.
During a recent roundtable that Veliaj participated in with other European mayors, he said that the earthquake provided them with an opportunity to create better neighbourhoods for citizens, when in fact it was planned years before.
The project will effectively privatise an entire neighbourhood of the city.
