The capital gets its field of dreams

It looks like Warsaw may finally get its long-awaited National Stadium. Recently the Minister of Sport, Tomasz Lipiec, announced that the Ministry and Warsaw City Hall plan to build a National Stadium in the place of the existing Tenth Anniversary Stadium at Warsaw's Rondo Waszyngtona. "According to City Hall, the Tenth Anniversary Stadium is the best location for the National Stadium," acting president of Warsaw, Mirosław Kochalski, said. He also added that the planned second Metro line has been rerouted in order to cater for the expected increase in traffic to the new facility. The stadium will be an element of the long-term strategy of developing sports infrastructure in the capital. Apart from the 55,000 seat stadium, a swimming arena and a sports hall are to be built on the current stadium's premises which now, instead of hosting crowds for thrilling sporting events, is the location of Europe's largest bazaar.

Bazaar beginnings

Built from the rubble of buildings destroyed during the Warsaw Uprising and opened in 1955, The Tenth Anniversary Stadium was one of the prime examples of the architecture of social realism in Warsaw. It was a venue for track and field events, soccer matches, as well as the final laps of the Peace Race cycling tour, regularly drawing more than 100,000 spectators. It was also used for political rallies and propaganda demonstrations during the communist era. However, regular sporting events stopped taking place there in the early 1980s. Since 1989 it has been housing the marketplace currently known as Jarmark Europa.

The new plans offer a chance to revitalize the area, which long has ceased to be associated with sports, and to finally build the modern National Stadium Poland has been lacking. As Poland is to host the 2009 European basketball championships, there is a pressing need to have such a facility.

The contest for the design project should be announced this year. Construction itself could commence at the end of 2007, following the expiration of the agreement between Damis, the company which runs the Jarmark Europa bazaar, and the city. The cost of building the National Stadium is estimated at around zł.500 million. The sports hall should cost around zł.250 million while the cost of building the swimming pool is estimated at zł.150 million.

"We have the guarantees from the Sports Ministry that the construction of the three facilities will be financed from the state budget," the director of Warsaw City Hall's Sports and Tourism Department, Artur Piłka, told Gazeta Wyborcza.

Eve of destruction

Of course, building a modern sports center on the grounds of Jarmark Europa would mean the destruction of the popular open-air marketplace. The president of Damis, Bogdan Tomaszewski, told the WBJ that around 4,000 entities are active in the bazaar and around 20,000 companies produce goods that are later sold at the stadium. "I estimate that even up to 100,000 people find jobs directly or indirectly because of Jarmark Europa's existence," Tomaszewski said.

The bazaar, although well past its glory days of the mid-1990s, is still making money. Tomaszewski estimates its annual revenues in recent years at between zł.700-800 million. In 1996 and 1997 the figure was estimated at around zł.1.7 billion and zł.1.9 billion respectively. "New visa regulations for citizens of post-Soviet states introduced in 1998 and the economic crisis in Russia hurt Jarmark Europa," Tomaszewski explained. He added that wholesale outlets established around Warsaw, as well as hypermarkets, which have rapidly expanded since the mid-1990s, have also negatively impacted the business.

"For the city of Warsaw the stadium is a goose that lays golden eggs," Tomaszewski underlines. He says that the city gets around zł.10 million worth of trading fees from the stadium, plus taxes from the vendors. He also adds that maintaining an empty unused stadium would cost the city close to zł.10 million.

Tomaszewski says that if Poland isn't chosen as the host of the 2012 European soccer championships, there will definitely be negotiations with the municipality to decide the vendors' fate. "We will be working to convince the city to keep the vendors at the stadium," Tomaszewski said, adding that it would be to the benefit of the city to find a balance between holding the market and hosting sporting events.

Hat trick

Building a National Stadium on the Tenth Anniversary Stadium's premises doesn't mean that the city's plans of erecting a modern stadium on the place of the current Legia Warsaw stadium on ul. Łazienkowska have been discarded. That stadium should have a capacity of around 35,000 and should cost between zł. 250-300 million. "We are finishing talks with three consortia interested in the project, soon we will invite them to present their offers," Piłka said. The city is likely to bear half of the cost of the investment, while a private partner will pay the rest.

Kochalski added that City Hall is currently working out the best way of modernizing Polonia Warsaw's stadium at ul. Konwiktorska. "The tender for renovation should be prepared by the end of February," the acting president said, adding that the stadium should ultimately have a capacity of 8,000-10,000. These plans, along with those for the National Stadium, offer hope that within few years Warsaw could go from having few quality sports facilities to boasting three modern stadiums. And for sports fans in the capital, that's definitely something to cheer about.