By Naom Alkhosi.
Tripoli, 11 June 2014:
The Tripoli Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture plans to place its 1930s two-storey Italian-villa headquarters . . .[restrict]in the heart of Tripoli with a seven-story office complex, including offices for itself, and a hotel. It has launched an appeal to Libyan businessmen and companies to invest in the project
“Our investment committee is interested in receiving proposals for a seven-floor office building to replace the current one on the site belonging to the Chamber in Dahra, beside the Algerian Embassy,” Ahmed Al Faqih, the Chamber’s head told the Libya Herald.
The site covers 2,000 square metres, he added. “We have many ideas about building a hotel or whatever else we can agree with investors.”
It was a great opportunity he added. “Instead of keeping money frozen at banks these kind of projects are a chance for using it,” he enthused.
The Chamber is looking to retain a quarter of the development for itself with the rest being rented out to repay investors and give itself and income.
It remains to be seen if a seven-story building just a stone’s throw from the municipal council offices in Algeria Square will gain planning approval. Not that anyone appears to care about such legal niceties. Conservationists may well protest about the demolition of the existing building but a massive number of buildings in the centre of the capital have been demolished and replaced with high rises in the past couple of years with absolutely no regard paid to building regulations.
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