Making up for lost time
It was a year ago that Poland and the Ukraine were entrusted with organizing the Euro 2012 football championships.
The two governments and local authorities stress that preparations are gathering pace, but private investors, architects, experts and engineers are increasingly doubtful
Mladen Petrov
On 18th April 2007 Europe learned with mixed feelings that Poland and Ukraine had been granted the right to organize the European Football Championships. Italy was furious with UEFA’s decision and is currently contesting whether Poland and the Ukraine are able to stage the event. What is really lacking in Poland and Ukraine? Almost everything: from stadiums up to road infrastructure. Investors in both countries have to struggle with the absence of the legislation necessary for an event of such a scale. Investment financing is yet another unknown, with only
a small number of projects to be financed by private investors. Research company PMR estimates that the total bill will come to nearly EUR 38 bln.
Which way to the stadium?
The cost of the work needed in Poland accounts for 60 pct of that sum, one third of which is to be used for road improvements. Apart from constructing stretches of the A2 motorway (western section) and the A4 (eastern section), almost the entire length of the A1 motorway figures on the list of urgent tasks, together with a network of express highways – the most important of which is the S5 highway linking Wrocław with Poznań and ending at Gdańsk. All in all, 906 km of new motorways will have to be built prior to Euro 2012. Sections with a total length of 172 km are under now construction, with work on a further 625 km of motorways to begin in 2008. But some projects might not even get started.
Adrian Furgalski, director of the TOR Economic Advisors Group remarks that: “It is quite unrealistic to claim that all plans to modernize the railways and motorways will succeed. Even at this stage it is obvious that only 2/3 of these projects will be implemented, although these expectations may soon have to be downgraded. Driving suitability will be guaranteed but probably nothing more.”
Major railway lines are also to be modernized, as well as the most important stations. Warsaw city council wants to get the first underground railway line finished and to construct the central section of the second line, which would carry passengers to Poland’s most important stadium.
Key airport projects will require a total of EUR 2 bln, including the construction of an airport in Modlin, outside Warsaw. For their part, the Ukrainians estimate that their road projects might well cost more than EUR 5 bln.
Time to sum up
As regards foreign assessments of Poland’s efforts, the first report presented by UEFA inspectors on what has been achieved between May and November 2007 highlights guidelines for Poland’s activities. The recently published second report gave a relatively good assessment of what had been accomplished. UEFA inspectors were particularly satisfied with the clearly defined divisions of competences between local and central government, which may be due to the absence of such a division in the Ukraine. The report negatively commented on the vague accounting for the sources of finance for individual projects in the Ukraine.
Furgalski awards the government a C. “A long list of acts of Parliament still await approval and it’s because of such delays that we are faced with the poor state of the roads. We are building too little and the construction of major sections has come to a halt.”
Urgent issues
A total of 12 stadiums will be constructed or modernized in Poland and Ukraine by 2012. In Poland, football stadiums will be built up from the foundations in Warsaw, Gdańsk and Wrocław, while those in Poznań, Chorzów and Kraków are to be adapted to UEFA requirements. Chorzów and Kraków are still on the reserve list.
In the Ukraine, the two first sports facilities will be delivered this year: Dnipro stadium in Dnipropetrovsk and Shakhtar in Donetsk. A little more time is needed to build new stadiums in Lvov and Kiev. The Odessa and Kharkiv stadiums, which figure on Ukraine’s reserve list, are also undergoing modernization.
As Guy Perry, an architect at Investment Environment points out: “Poland seems as if it isn’t proud of the opportunity. Pride and greater commitment is clearly more evident in the Ukraine.”
Warsaw to become a football fans’ city
The location of Poland’s National Stadium, which has been designed by the JSK Architekci studio and which is to become part of a larger National Sports Centre, has finally been decided upon. It will be situated in the bowl of the old Stadion Dziesięciolecia and have a capacity of 55,000 spectators. Construction work should begin in 2009 and be completed before in the third quarter of 2011.
The more than 30-ha plot will contain a sports and entertainment hall, an indoor swimming pool and full-sized field hockey pitch, as well as a building for the ministry of sport and Polish sports unions. A tender to develop the stadium’s surrounding area will be decided on this month. As regards the cost, PLN 1 bln has been mooted.
And developments outside Warsaw?
The Wrocław football stadium will be built on a 21-ha plot on the Maślice housing estate. Apart from the pitch itself, there will also be a car park for 3,000 vehicles,
a hotel and restaurants, as well as a museum. The total cost is to be PLN 500 mln. The city plans to carry out this investment as a public-private partnership, according to which a plot situated on the motorway ring road would be transferred to the private investor, who will be allowed to use the site for a shopping centre development. In return, the investor would have to raise most of the finance for the stadium’s construction. Work is to begin this year and will take 24 months.
Will Euro 2012 make it possible to implement other projects on the public-private partnership principle? Marzena Rytel, deputy director for construction and building materials at PricewaterhouseCoopers, feels that: “The National Stadium in Warsaw cannot be taken into account for it is to be constructed from national budget money. The fundamental criterion for such projects is – will they serve a public function? But possibilities do exist for investors interested in developing the accompanying infrastructure, airports and railways.”
Poznań has been modernizing its city stadium since 2004. Following the decision to hold the part of the championships in Poland, the roofing of the whole stadium was included in the reconstruction plans. The stadium will seat 46,600, while its redevelopment is to cost PLN 436 mln. In Gdańsk, the Baltic Arena is being built in the run-down district of Letnica. Several office buildings and
a deluxe hotel will be constructed nearby. The project, which is to cost around PLN 500 mln, will begin in the fourth quarter of the present year. The first players should be able to take to the pitch in 2010.
The final countdown
And the clock ticks on inexorably. Only little more than
4 years remain until the first match kicks off in Warsaw’s National Stadium. An increasing number of voices can be heard crying out that there is just not enough time.
