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Estonian bank planning park, apartment building where Maxima supermarket once collapsed

BC, Riga, 19.10.2018.Print version
Estonian bank Coop Pank is planning to reconstruct an apartment building and build an underground parking lot and a park at 20 Priedaines Street in Riga, which is where a Maxima supermarket collapsed in November 2013, informs LETA.

The complex of the apartment building and the supermarket originally belonged to property developer Homburg Zolitude. Last May, Estonian bank Eesti Krediidipank bought the property at auction for 3.9 mln euros. At the moment, it belongs to the company Prana Property which, according to Firmas.lv data, is a subsidiary of Coop Pank.


The Riga city council's committee on buildings degrading the environment on Friday reviewed maintenance of the building at 20 Priedaines Street. As reported, a Maxima supermarket, located at the same address as the apartment building, collapsed in 2013, killing 54 people. According to the committee's chairman Olegs Burovs, the Riga city council's property department has received several residents' complaints about the deteriorating apartment building. Although the department has asked the owners to improve the building's appearance, it has not been done yet.


Prana Property's representative Raul Keskula told the committee that this was due to miscommunication between his company and the Riga municipality, and that the company was planning to renovate the building's exterior by December 15. Keskula said that, later on, Coop Pank was planning to complete construction of the apartment building.


He added that the project envisaged completing the construction of the building, as well as an underground parking lot and a park, which would be developed around the memorial to the victims of the tragedy. The first floor of the building could house a florist's and cafes.

Burovs replied that his department had already rejected the idea. "I personally believe that only the memorial should remain there," said Burovs.


The contention is primarily about the underground parking lot, located right where the supermarket once stood. Alona Burve, one of the survivors of Zolitude tragedy, said that her husband had died in the disaster and she herself was trapped under the debris on that fateful day.


"I have seen a lot of cynicism in my life, but nothing like what I saw today," she said, adding that she and the other people, whose loved ones were killed when Maxima collapsed, would never agree that an underground parking lot is built there.

 

 






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