Filling a gap

Three local investors intend to construct a 15,000-sqm facility comprising a four- or five-star hotel and a conference and entertainment center worth some EUR 20 (zł.81) million in the capital of the Podkarpackie voivodship. They plan to pull down the existing buildings by the end of 2006 and launch construction works in the spring of 2007. The project is scheduled for completion within two years.

Andrzej Skotnicki, director of the architectural department at Rzeszów City Hall, is enthusiastic about the project and says the investment will have a huge impact on the city. "There is a 42-meter-wide gap in the frontage of the historic marketplace. It's been like that since the 1960s, when buildings were demolished because of their bad condition," says Skotnicki.

"It is extraordinary that these days, in the center of a voivodship capital, there is still a gap between tenements. Initially, we were planning a shopping and service center. We already had the design but we have changed the concept and now we are designing a new hotel with conferencing, congress and entertainment facilities," says Kamil Fok, one of the investors.

Fok, along with the other investors, Marek Czarnik and Mariusz Cybulski, are planning to set up a company that will own the complex and are looking for a hotel chain to run it. The city's conservator of monuments is supervising the works and wants to ensure that the facades of each building comprising the facility will be a reconstruction of the former tenements. The facility will also host a swimming pool, a disco, a bowling alley and a two-storey underground parking lot.