LOCATED in the Naafi residential area of Limassol, Fysko Lotus Plaza, a building designed in the 90s aiming to create an innovative combination of residential and retail space, has for years been a site of dereliction, dumping and illegal activity, including drug trafficking.
Given the high hopes its owner had for the building in the beginning, one has to wonder what went wrong.
A visit to Fysko Lotus Plaza’s ground and basement floors offers some terrifying sights; the toilets have been smashed, the floors are littered with broken furniture, mattresses, motor spare parts, broken bottles, syringes, even human excrement. The walls are covered with football and threatening slogans. All the shops on the ground floor are empty.
“At night, people bring stolen cars and bikes, drug users come here, all kinds of illegal activity. In the day-time school kids hang out here, when they get bored at school. I have talked to them on several occasions and they said they don’t want the place to get cleaned up – they like it as it is,” said Marios (not his real name), who runs a workshop at one of the shops at the complex.
The building’s residents now live in constant fear, unable to change the situation or their living condition. “The flats’ interiors are quite nice actually, but residents have to deal with this situation and are afraid to go out at night,” Marios said.
According to Marios, the downhill slide was caused by mismanagement on the part of the building’s owners. “The problems started from the beginning, particularly with the shops on the ground floor. The owner would give away shops to contractors and builders, instead of paying them for their services; these people, however, were not really interested in opening shops there so the spaces were left empty.
“Then, the owner went bankrupt and as a result no-one has title deeds for the shops or flats they bought there. Therefore, it was difficult to sell these shops and as a result they were abandoned,” Marios explained.
“The retail space design concept has caused additional problems. For example, there are central toilets and wash spaces, but no individual toilets or sinks in each shop. The toilets were shattered from the beginning and now no-one can get in; you can get sick just by stepping in the toilet, let alone using it,” he added.
Since the building was constructed, it has often been associated with events that have given it a ‘bad karma’ reputation with locals. “There was a young woman who committed suicide here a few a years ago. The building has a circular shape and empty space in the middle. She fell from one of the flats to that empty space.”
As building residents confirmed, the municipal Health Services have come to clean up on several occasions, but a few days later the place would be back to the way it was before. Frequent police patrols have also not been enough to control the illegal activity at the complex. Although there is an administration committee for the residential part of the building, there is no-one responsible for administering the situation at the retail segment of the building, where most of the trouble takes place.
Limassol City Council will discuss the issue at a meeting which will take place today, where it is expected that the building will be classed as a site of public disturbance, enabling authorities to take measures for its clean-up.
