Riga tough on Multihalle

  • 2004-02-12
  • Baltic News Service
RIGA - The financial committee of the Riga City Council said last week it supported the concept of the city's participation in the ice-hockey-arena joint venture but raised the proposed size of municipal ownership in the project from 70 percent to 75 percent.

The committee backed the recommendations made earlier by the task force set up by Mayor Gundars Bojars for assessing the city's possible cooperation with SIA Multihalle, the firm that won the tender for construction of the arena but has come under increasing fire for reportedly failing to attract any major investors to the project.
Multihalle officials claim that finance has been lined up from several banks, but that without a guarantee of land from the city no loans can be disbursed. Originally they offered the city a 48 percent stake in the joint venture.
The arena is crucial for Riga, since without it the city will lose the privilege of holding the World Ice Hockey Championships in 2006. For this reason the 26 million euro arena, part of a larger, 250 million euro project that will include a hotel, a shopping center and office buildings in the area where Riga's hippodrome was once located, has returned to the center of political debate and even helped precipitate Latvia's government crisis when former Prime Minister Einars Repse accused his deputy Ainars Slesers of foot-dragging on the arena.
The Riga City Council has issued a 98 year lease to Multihalle for a 17 hectare land plot in central Riga for building the arena, with additional land reserved for the company.
Experts claim that construction of the arena must begin no later than this spring in order for the arena to be ready in time. Nevertheless, as funding for the project is still uncertain, many doubt negotiations will be wrapped up in time.
Multihalle is owned by four Latvian businessmen closely tied to the sports industry.