CONTROVERSY over the new location of the Cyprus Stock Exchange (CSE) building raged on yesterday, with allegations that vested interests had prompted town-planning authorities to rush the project through the back door.
Last week, the CSE called tenders for the construction of its new premises on the site of the old GSP stadium in Nicosia. The stock market building is currently housed under a temporary licence at the former International Merchandising Centre (IMC), an impressive complex on the outskirts of the capital. According to a Cabinet decision, within five years the CSE would have to find permanent premises within the capital’s municipal boundaries.
The decision has raised an uproar, with a citizens’ action group saying the move disregards aesthetics, environmental concerns and will worsen traffic congestion in the town centre, already nightmarish during peak hours.
For their part, the town-planning authority say the construction of the CSE building, a landmark site, will boost economic activity in the area, considered one of the capital’s two major civic centres. In addition to the CSE, plans are under way to make space for shops and an open-air amphitheatre, while an underground parking lot would help solve traffic problems.
The CSE building is to occupy 25 per cent of the site, and will replace an old basketball court where youngsters meet up in afternoons to shoot hoops.
But analysts have speculated the construction of the CSE building will send real-estate prices in the area soaring, suggesting vested interests are at stake in the whole affair.
“Nicosia, our town,” the recently formed action group, yesterday slammed town-planning authorities for trying “to justify with technocratic jargon the desecration of a long-time Nicosia landmark.”
The group is comprised of environmentalists, archaeologists, architects and people of the arts and culture opposed to the construction of a “monstrosity in the heart of Nicosia”. They propose that a park and open-air theatre be built instead.
The group’s spokesman Andreas Petrides said yesterday the decision revealed a mentality that was “outdated and dictatorial, because it fails to take into account people’s sensibilities”. The group is suggesting that back-door tactics were employed to push the project forward; town-planning authorities, they say, reached their decision at the last moment and did not inform the concerned municipalities in due time.
Petrides warned the group would take “drastic measures” if the project went as planned.
Another member, Andonia Theodosiou, an architect, also questioned the wisdom behind such a project, remarking that Nicosia had the least greenery per citizen compared of all European capitals.
The town-planning authority and Nicosia Mayor Michalakis Zampelas hit back, insisting that development plans in the area had been made known and published in the government gazette two years ago, wondering why the group were protesting now.
While the issue is being hotly debated in the media, some analysts have observed that the cost of the new CSE building will be around £10 million, plus another £6-7 million for IT equipment and other fittings. This has raised the question of how the already ailing CSE could raise the money for the project. Others still have proposed the new CSE building be constructed without a trading floor, enabling workers to work from remote locations; this would allow staff reductions and save a considerable percentage of the projected costs.
Commentators in the press have argued that, if the CSE building were truly intended as a landmark construction, it should be built in suburbs in need of economic revitalisation, such as Kaimakli.
Petrides wondered: “Why must it be the old GSP stadium? We could think of a thousand alternative sites, and I am sure Mayor Zampelas could too.”
The old GSP stadium was built at the turn of the 20th century. It has been used to host sports and cultural events, and was the venue for major meetings among politicians that shaped the island’s history.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
