Two New Parks, Walking Area To Appear In Sofias Centre

The new detailed master plan for the western part of Sofia city centre, the area between the Hristo Botev, Alexander Stamboliiski, Maria Luiza boulevards and Pirotska Street envisions the construction of new office buildings, more green spaces, but would also cut into one of the main thoroughfares linking the central part of the city to Lyulin district.The northern carriageway of Knyaz Alexander Doundoukov Boulevard from Tzum shopping centre onward to Lyulin will be transformed into walking area and all traffic will be diverted to the southern carriageway, Maria Dobreva of the urban planning department at Sofia municipality told The Sofia Echo on September 4.This area will turned into a park, which will continue on to the Catholic Church, Dobreva said. The new church will also be surrounded by gardens, which will increase the surface of the green areas to 1.24ha from the current allocation of 0.8ha, she said.Two new office buildings of 15 floors each will be raised next to the Catholic Church and more buildings are planned on both sides of Todor Alexandrov Boulevard. The construction density in the area will double to 80 per cent, according to the new detailed master plan of the area."An exceptional number of new commercial developments are planned around Pirotska Street," Dobreva said. Pirotska has always been a commercial street and the existing commercial spaces will be re-constructed and more floors will be added, Dobreva said. Construction will also go on above streets in a way that would connect two buildings on opposite sides of a street, she said.Two to three levels of underground parking lots will be built under the Pirotska Street shopping area. The number of new parking spaces, according to the master plan, will reach 3000, with 500 open-air parking places. The underground parking lots will be built only after the area is carefully surveyed, so that it would not endanger nearby old buildings and would proceed only if no archaeological findings are made during the surveys, Dobreva said.Buildings that have been recognised by authorities as cultural monuments of national or regional importance, will be restored.Further on in the Zona B-5 area near Opulchenska Street, which media reports have claimed would become the site of intense construction activity, the plan envisions only one new tall building next to the hospital of the Interior Ministry, according to Dobreva. The Sofia city hall plans to transform the area into a park with open-air swimming pools, a stadium and football pitches. Currently, the space is taken by covered with empty and unkept lots and old industrial buildings, which will be demolished.Two mineral water springs are also located in the area, which created a possibility for spa development. A small hotel is also planned to be build Zona B5-4, she said.The project will receive funding from the Sofia municipality in its budget for 2009, Dobreva said.The new detailed master plan already has its opponents in architects Boris Enev and Evgenia Hodkevich from the architectural studio Fordewind, as well as the newly-formed initiative committee set up by local residents, whose goal is "preserving territories of cultural-historical heritage in Sofia and cutting the opportunities for corruption practices", the citizens said in a media statement on September 2.The initiative committee will organise a public hearing of the project for all citizens on September 9 in the building of BTA news agency from noon to 2pm and have claimed that Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov and Sofia chief architect Petar Dikov will attend the discussion.According to Enev and Hodkevich, in case the new detailed master plan is approved in its current form, the current landowners from the area will lose their land without wanting to sell it, and historical buildings will be put in danger due to construction of underground garages too close to them.The two architects also said in a media statement that the new detailed master plan would destroy "naturally formed city ensembles; thousands of people will live in a huge construction site for a period of several years; all green areas between the buildings will be irreversibly destroyed; a social, cultural and partially environmental crisis would be caused artificially".