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Faro and Loulé councils want to set up a Congress and Exhibition Centre next to the Algarve Stadium. The project already exists, what they need now is the cash. After the Stadium and the Central Hospital, the local authorities in Faro and Loulé want to see a further facility built in the Parque das Cidades which they see as decisive for the survival of the Park itself: a Congress and Exhibition Centre, complemented by a four-star hotel and a complex of shops and offices.

However, the project does not yet have a starting date because an essential precondition is still missing: the necessary funds for the construction. At a press conference yesterday morning, Seruca Emídio, president of the Loulé Municipal Council, said that they had two and a half million euros which had come from the Vilamoura XXI project, and they had got a further 500,000 euros from the current community support framework, making about three million euros in total. Now they just need to find the remaining 17 million, as the estimated cost of the project is 20 million euros. The idea is to set up public-private partnerships to enable to work to go ahead, possibly with part of the community funds from the 2007/2013 National Strategic Reference Framework.

The president of the Faro Municipal Council, José Apolinário, said that public institutions were setting the ball rolling and they were counting on getting the support of government bodies; he added that private partners would certainly be found. He said that they were creating the conditions for the Parque das Cidades to be sustainable.

In addition to the Algarve Stadium, which staged some of the Euro 2004 matches and is the home ground for the Farense and Louletano teams, the plans for the site, which is about 100 hectares in size, include the building of the Algarve Central Hospital, the Regional Public Health Laboratory and a centre for holding sports training camps.

The space, which is managed by the two local authorities, is also intended to be provided with 30 hectares of green areas and some 5,000 parking spaces.

A mega-project

The building of the Congress and Exhibition Centre, which is regarded as an “important lever” for the development of Faro, Loulé, São Brás and Olhão is a plan that has been around for some years but it has been repeatedly postponed.

Seruca Emídio said that they had already lost a lot of time and had allowed other facilities to go ahead, some of which had conditions that are not as good, but now was the time to move forward.

Both councils are interested in creating a quality facility and they believe that the location could not be better, given its proximity to the airport, the railway line and the Via do Infante A22 motorway.

As regards the project, whose guiding principle is versatility, it includes an auditorium with a capacity of 1,800 – which will be the biggest in the Algarve – especially conceived to host conferences and artistic productions.

The project designer said that the stage would have rising platforms and an orchestra pit also on a rising platform, and he stressed the fact that the venue could be divided creating two auditoria with a vertical division which will separate the balcony (with seating for 600 people) from the stalls.

Annexed to the auditorium will be the Algarve pavilion, which could house different types of exhibition, congresses, fashion shows and sports competitions.

The architect said that this venue could be divided into different modules which would allow different events to be held at the same time, and he said that the design would take energy efficiency and the use of recyclable materials into account.

The project will be complemented by an area of shops and offices facing the future hospital and the Regional Public Health Laboratory.

The hotel was regarded as a key component for the project’s sustainability despite the fact that it was not included in the original detailed plan. Seruca Emídio said that it made complete sense to have a hotel there and that it was essential so that people hold not only congress there but also sports training camps, another area they believe had a promising future.

José Apolinário added that nowadays congress centres are served by at least one or two hotels and although the region had a good range of hotel facilities, these hotels serve above all to accommodate the logistical component that is part of events, i.e. most of the members of organising teams.

source: algarve observer