Renovation of Tallinn’s ‘Linnahall’ requires state aid permission
The renovation of Tallinn’s Linnahall as currently planned required a state aid permission from the European Commission, and the necessary request would only be filed in August, Linnahall management member Kaia Jäppinen told BNS.
Completed for the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics, the building was first called the V. I. Lenin Palace of Culture and Sport, and later renamed Linnahall, “city hall”.
Apart from its main events hall that closed in 2010, the building also had an ice rink, closed in 2009. After the city of Tallinn spent six years looking for investors, the planning phase for the building’s renovation began in 2015.
Although this has reached the stage where a tender for the future design of Linnahall could be announced, work will likely drag on even longer, as it now turns out that both the Estonian state as well as the city need permission from the European Commission to support the renovation with some €40 million each.
Jäppinen said that they needed to file for the according permission before announcing the design tender and looking for architects. She added that getting the permission might take four months or more.
According to Jäppinen, they are planning to apply for it in August.
The city wants to turn Linnahall into a conference center, concert venue, and commercial space.
Editor: Dario Cavegn
Source: BNS