THE DEFENCE Ministry is at loggerheads with Nicosia Municipality over what to do with the old Philoxenia Hotel on Aglandja Avenue. According to one ministry official, the ministry wants to use it as the new premises for its Officers Club, which is being kicked out of its current home behind the old GSP Stadium. Meanwhile, the Nicosia Municipality identified the old hotel as the site for a new state-of-the-art hotel and conference centre to attract valuable money-making conference tourism to the capital.
Nicosia Mayor Eleni Mavrou yesterday accused the government of making plans for the capital without bothering to inform the municipality. Just last week, she was pitching the idea of a modern conference and hotel centre in Aglandja to the Commerce Minister who seemed to approve the idea.
The Defence Ministry’s Permanent Secretary Petros Kareklas told the Cyprus Mail that the ministry had been looking for a new place to house the Officers Club for a long time but that nothing was available.
“There was some issue of using the Yorkion but the rent was too high and the Finance Ministry rejected it. The old Philoxenia Hotel is very appropriate for our purposes. It’s available, it already has kitchens. The previous user, the Labour Ministry, doesn’t want it any more.
“It has an outside, verandah, swimming pool, parking, there are no houses around. We will ask Cabinet on Wednesday to approve it. Our technicians have already looked at the place and we are ready to renovate it,” said Kareklas.
The permanent secretary noted that if Cabinet approved the request for the state-owned hotel, the ministry would continue renovations and slowly bring more ministry services to the hotel.
Asked what he thought of the municipality’s idea for a conference centre, Kareklas said: “In the state it’s in, they’d have to level it and build it again. The costs will be very high. I think it’s more appropriate to be used in the state it’s in now as an Officers Club.”
Mavrou was less sure, expressing her shock that the ministry had gone so far with its plans without anyone informing the municipality. The mayor said the project could be paid off with a Build-Operate-Transfer scheme which would cover the high costs and provide needed revenue to the city.
