The process of a technical due diligence provides valuable information. The preparation of the project continues

At the beginning of the month August, the city has obtained from its project partner, the Proficheck company, the first draft of the technical due diligence of the area of the future smart district, which investigated the actual state of the buildings. The first step was to locate and measure the buildings, as well as the constructions and the architectural details.  The outcome of the scanning and measuring is the precise 3D model which will serve for the architects as a valuable base for the following project steps. 

Another crucial step for the successful transformation of the area is examination of the technical condition of the buildings – which carried both good and bad news. The buildings that are still under operation – the multi-story building which serves as an archive, and the two-bay hall where the maintenance of the machines is done, turned out to be in a good shape and their structure is ready for the transformation.  

However, the cooling tower requires larger repairs and stabilisation. The camera footage taken from a drone showed not only the breathtaking views on the historical city and Petrov church, but also the holes in the concrete and exposed reinforcement. The bad technical condition of the thin exposed shell construction of reinforced concrete was nevertheless expected, therefore the larger investments into renovation of this structure have already been part of the discussion. 

The extent of the renovation costs, and their impact on the proposed programme of the “EVENT HUB” with the viewpoint on the tower, will however be cleared out after the invasive examination of the construction. The invasive approach lies in drilling the sonde into the structure, that will reveal the extent of the deterioration of the materials. Similar analysis awaits even for the other buildings, not excluding the ground under them – in the following months, the environmental audit will examine the potential ecological loads in the soil as a residue of the industrial operations in the past. Together with finishing of the measures and building analysis, the process of the collection of all the information about the area is expected to be done in the beginning of the next year. These data will direct the development of the architectural project in the next months and help to progress in the process of purchasing the area into the municipal ownership.