REPUBLISHED

“Bridges Towards Albania 2030”: real projects or “election-time 3D”?

Erblin Vukaj · Originally published: 13 January 2025

The projects and the development model

The government aims to build the new National Library, the Selman Stërmasi stadium and new administrative offices with private partners. In exchange, it pledges to grant investors permits to build at least three towers of 25–40 storeys in Tirana.

The idea was presented on Thursday under the title “Bridges Towards Albania 2030.” It is part of a controversial public-private partnership (PPP) development model that the government has used before.

The model is justified as a way to increase public investment at no cost. The costs are charged to private companies. But it comes without clear transparency over decision-making, public benefits or the long-term impact.

The government first applied it in 2016 to build the National Stadium. The project became a sports complex with a tower and commercial premises, leaving only the pitch inside the stadium as public space.

The model was then attempted for the National Theatre. But protests and the private partner’s withdrawal from the investment forced the government to take on construction itself. It nevertheless also satisfied the private partner’s interests by granting it the right to build the neighbouring tower.

Through this approach, Tirana lost a historic building of distinctive architecture, along with other spaces around the centre that became saturated with construction.

More recently, the model has been reworked by bringing the Albanian Investment Corporation into play. In 2024, it took over the administration of 28 public properties for development. Since November, it has advanced its plans for eight of them.

Although the aim is to attract foreign investors, the experience of “Strategic Investments” suggests the opposite.

The government’s approach to PPPs is criticised for bypassing public consultation, competition and general development plans.

Calls for investors and deadlines

The corporation’s first two calls had separate competitions for concept designs and investors. They concerned the development of offices for the Cadastre, the Property Treatment Agency and the expropriation agency.

In exchange for these premises, the corporation was prepared to offer private partners the opportunity to build two towers of 25–40 storeys.

But after presenting the winning designs, the corporation was forced to extend the investor competition from 6 January to 20 January. There appears to have been no interest.

The procedures require the winning architecture practices to be subcontracted. Investors must develop the concept with them. But few investors are interested solely in developing projects. They generally have their own design teams or practices, which give the concept their own vision of doing business.

In an effort to attract more investors, the corporation changed the procedures for the other two calls. “Revitalising the Selman Stërmasi Stadium” and “The National Library” opened as a “dual competition” for architectural designs and investment offers.

Yet the short deadlines, reduced from 60 to 30 days, have raised doubts about the seriousness and transparency of the process. Ahead of the parliamentary election, the government appears more interested in “3D” presentations.

Similar projects for the stadiums in Durrës, Vlora and Korça were presented with great fanfare before the 2023 local elections. The winning concepts by 51N4E, Xaveer De Geyter Architects and Cebra Architecture were presented before the local elections on 14 May.

What the projects had in common was that they also envisaged high-rise development around the stadiums.

The government paid the practices €1.2 million to draw up “Mandatory Local Plans” for the stadiums (decisions: here, here and here). Yet they failed to attract investors and currently remain merely “3D” visualisations.

The end of January and February will show whether this approach is repeated for the new “Bridges Towards Albania 2030” projects.