Will Jurmala's White Palace survive privatization?

  • 1998-07-30
  • By Sandra Medearis
JURMALA - The Kemeri sanitarium, an hour by train from Riga, has for six decades hosted the ailing and the aging, with mud, sulfur water and other treatments. Standing framed by trees in a French garden of 10 hectares (about 25 acres), the Kemeri is a six-story monument to neo-eclectic architecture that originated in Latvia.

But the "white palace" in Jurmala, as the Kemeri is known, could be a white elephant for the Italian firm that bought the property in a privatization auction on July 18. The sole bidder, Ominasis Italia of Rome, paid the Latvian Privatization Agency's (LPA's) asking price of 900,000 lats ($1.53 million) with 20 percent payable in cash and the remainder in privatization vouchers for 100 percent ownership. The company is having to pay 60,260 lats up front, Via Kasakovska, spokeswoman for the LPA said.

Today, as it has since the mid-30s, the spa hotel treats visitors complaining of joint and spinal ailments, nervous disorders, heart and circulatory diseases and skin diseases with sulfur baths, peat mud, medical gymnastics, massage, barochamber, physiotherapy, inhalations, showers, saunas and acupuncture. Whether mud will be available to ooze between patients' toes at the Kemeri in the future depends on Ominasis Italia.

Some other privatized sanitariums have closed or stand in need of investment to fulfill privatization contracts, Kasakovska said. The Kemeri's owners, under the sales contract, must develop 120 new jobs over the next five years and attract new investments worth 10,000,000 lats, more than 10 times the purchase price. They must accomplish all this while laws restrict them from significantly altering the property.

The new owners could not be reached in Rome this week, but their spokesman and representative in the purchase, Riga attorney Aivars Sikora of Elizabetes Street, said that representatives of the company will come to Riga in mid-August for a meeting on development plans for the spa.

"It is early to talk about plans now," Sikora said. "It is just the beginning of the privatization process."

Still, certain conditions for private use of the property are set in concrete by law and by policy of the LPA. The Kemeri must hold a spa program for five years, Kasakovska said. Laws covering monuments of culture prevent drastic alterations to the interior or exterior of the building. The appraisal to set the lowest acceptable bid for the Kemeri relied partially on its value as an historical site.

"The building has architectural value," Kasakovska said. "The structure with all its interior articles of decoration - furniture, lamps pieces of art and library are of cultural significance for Latvia."

The Kemeri, built in two years from 1933-1935, needs to be considered on a world scale as an architectural museum piece, J. Dambis, head of inspection for the state agency overseeing preservation of Latvia's monuments told the LPA. Architect E. Laube designed the hotel.

"It deserves to hold a position adjacent to such well known objects as Paimio spa in Finland (built at the same time) and others," Dambis wrote in a written evaluation for LPA. "Kemeri hotel can be compared to the palaces of Courland's dukes in Jelgava and Rundale, designed by F. B. Rastelli. It is characterized by virtuous and developed composition, proportions and silhouette."

Any restorative work on the Kemeri that is done will have to conform to local building codes in Jurmala, Kasakovska said She was optimistic about the future success of the Kemeri.

"Jurmala is the perfect place for residents to take modern sulfur baths," she said. "It is a nice place with little industry."

Solveiga Freiburgs of the Jurmala Information Center in Majori said that spa business is booming.

"It happens very often that with the improvement in the weather, we cannot find rooms for spa visitors," she said. "The big hotels as well as the smaller ones are booked."