Senad Softić about the building of the Central Bank in Hastahana: We advocate the most for the park

Senad Softić talking about the building of the Central Bank in Hastahana: We are the biggest advocates of having the green park

In an interview with Klix.ba, the Governor of the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Senad Softić, spoke about the plan to construct the building in a part of Sarajevo's Hastahana Park.

He explained why they decided to have the building on the mentioned site and commented on numerous speculations about this Project.

The topic of conversation with Softić was the choice of the architectural solution that was presented this week. He commented on the opposition of some citizens and politicians to this Project.

He answered the question of what could mean if Hastahana is declared a national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Governor of the Central Bank pointed out the most important details of this building and stated how it would contribute to the local community, i.e. Municipality of Centar.

How did the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina come up with the idea of ​​buying a plot in the Hastahana site?

The plan for providing adequate space is foreseen by the Strategic Plan of the Central Bank for the period from 2016 to 2021, by which the Bank defined the goal to provide appropriate business premises for all its organizational units aiming to have the efficient and safe business and administration operations.

Since then, we have worked intensively to find an adequate location for construction. However, each of the potential sites, from the aspect of central banking operations, had some shortcomings. At the moment when the Municipality of Centar changed its Regulatory Plan and foresaw the possibility of building such a building in Kranjčevićeva Street, we expressed interest in the above and submitted to the Municipality our Letter of Intent.

This was followed by activities related to the signing the Contract, payment of the purchase price, rental fees and finally the Central Bank was registered as the owner of the subject land as the sole owner. The CB is the user of the building at 25 Maršala Tita Street, being state-owned building and national monument, and it is the owner of the building at 3 Mehmeda Spahe Street, which largely belongs to the CB Head Office, while a very small part of the space (almost 10 percent) is the space used by the Main Unit Sarajevo (including rooms of special importance).

Main Unit Sarajevo maintains the reserve accounts of the largest number of banks in Bosnia and Herzegovina, through which all payments of citizens and legal entities are settled, and performs cash transactions. We need to provide adequate space for these processes that are important for the future of CB business.

"We did not influence the changes in the Regulatory Plan"

There has been speculation about the project, from connecting the Bank to the adoption of a Regulatory Plan to the intention to resell it. What is the truth of all this?

It is not secret that in search of a suitable location, in previous years, we addressed to a number of municipal administrations in Sarajevo with such a request. It is possible that this has been the logical reason for connecting the Bank with this site, also, and it is to expect that one institution of state importance will be interested in that space.

We believe that the location in the core of the capital is a place for institutions like the CB, following the example of all central banks in Europe and the world. It should have definitely priority over private investors.

The Central Bank did not influence the changes in the Municipality Regulatory Plan in any way.

The intention of the Bank is also clear and defined by the Purchase Contract, and that is exclusively the construction of the building for our needs. The CB has never talked about the further sale of land or building, and especially not the part that is to be built above the ground, and we strongly deny it, this time, again.

CB business processes, due to the security issues, cannot be organized with anyone under the same roof. These are speculations that have been placed and spread by informal groups within the local community, without any argument to back them up.

The situation is the same with rumours about rising the wall around the future bank building, and military and police officers who will secure the building, etc. This illustrates, in fact, that such information was generated with bad intent, but I think we will show, over time, that it has never been a part of our plans.

And the very conceptual solution clearly indicates the CB's commitment to build a representative building, with absolute adherence to the site landscape where it is located. Our citizens, today, normally use the available public areas near the CB buildings in Sarajevo and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

"Conceptual solution is chosen by eminent experts"

How did the selection of the conceptual solution go?

The conceptual design was selected after the public procurement procedure had been carried out, i.e. the Invitation to Bid for the development of the conceptual design, which was publicly announced through the e-procurement portal. It is important to emphasize that all bided designs were anonymous until the delivery of the final Decision of the Commission, and only after the selection was done, there came the pairing of the designs' submitted codes with the names of the authors.

Also, the majority of the Commission was featuring the eminent practice experts, who we hired outside the Bank, in order to get the best solution and this has proven to be a winning combination. ARH Group Ltd. from Sarajevo is the author of the winning bid. In accordance with the Law on Public Procurement, the public was informed about the entire procedure in a timely manner and all relevant documents were published on our website.

From the beginning, our requests were aimed at ensuring that the building was completely integrated into the overall ambience, which is why its selection took so long and I think the result is excellent. On the other hand, that time period, on which we could not influence due to legally defined procedures and deadlines, in a way, has cost us the dissatisfaction present, today, among some citizens, but we hope that we will be able to solve it and minimize that dissatisfaction with concrete actions and arguments.

More specifically, a little over a year passed since the purchase of the land until the selection of the conceptual design, and unfortunately that period opened up opportunities for various spins, stories, speculations, placement of incorrect information, etc. In that part, there are responsibilities of the CB, too, and we are sorry that the communication went in the wrong direction, because in terms of media, we were not significantly present, but we were looking forward to the moment to present the selected Project to the public.

 

"There will be no resale, nor construction of walls around the building"

Are you aware of the activities of an informal group of citizens and some municipal councillors who strongly oppose this project?

Of course, we are aware of the actions and attitudes of the group of citizens gathered around the Hastahan Initiative and we want to make it clear that we support every form of activism and the struggle of citizens for their rights. However, we at the Bank we are sure that a large number of people from the local community has a negative attitude towards this project precisely because they have been given incorrect information over a long period of time.

If you tell a young mother, a teenager, who needs sports and recreational area or a resident of Kranjčevićeva who walks with a dog that the space will no longer be intended for them and will be surrounded by walls and full of special forces guarding the space, it is logical to expect that they will be fierce opponents of such a construction. We all would be, including me personally.

Therefore, I want to send a clear message that such plans have never been part of our ideas. The whole site is designed to improve the quality of life of the entire local community and if the Municipal authorities are willing to commit to landscaping, make the best use of the ideas offered and if we establish adequate cooperation, there is no objective reason why anyone would be against it.

We also made direct contact with the Initiative of the Citizens of Hastahana, and we answered all their inquiries that we received, we provided information that was available to us at that time, but it is indicative that the Initiative of the Citizens did not publish, on its Facebook page, one of the last answers it received from the Bank, which contains answers to many of their questions and dilemmas, although they have been announcing these. These answers can be found on our website, as well.

We rightly ask ourselves whether this announcement and the answers we gave would affect the number of collected signatures of citizens who want to initiate a decision on the annulment of the Regulatory Plan, and who is actually interested in that?

We do not see any adjustable reason why the Municipality would make such a reckless decision and suffer great damage, because our Project is not directed against the citizens, on the contrary.

It is necessary for the public to know that the CB has invested a lot of effort, finances and time to reach this phase of the Project, and it is absolutely unacceptable for us, even hypothetically, to any change of the location, and especially the agreed termination of the Contract.

Bilateral termination requires the consent of both parties. The CB has met its contractual obligations in full and on time and we have no reason to terminate the Contract. On the other hand, if some obstacles appear, in that case it would be a matter of non-fulfilment of contractual obligations by the Municipality of Centar. Then, the compensation claim, in addition to the amount of the paid purchase price and rent for the construction land, would certainly be extremely high.

In terms of the above, I do not see that anyone would support such proposals, because their implementation does not benefit anyone, not even the local community. I find such proposals, to say the least, frivolous.

Nevertheless, that land would still be owned by the CB, on which, hypothetically, nothing should be built. Do we then want Hastahana to look like today for the next 20 years, except for those twenty days when New Year celebration and Holiday markets are held there?

The CB facility will be owned by the institution of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Non argued theses about the alleged seizure of land from the citizens are also dangerous, and as such are unacceptable to us. Such a local narrative is not appropriate for the dialogue in civil society, in which we all want to live.

CB is a state institution and in everything we do, so in this Project, the integrity and trust of citizens are in the first place.

"We have good ideas"

There was also talk of declaring this site a national monument. What exactly is it about?

At the end of last year, the Commission to Preserve National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina decided to declare the historic urban landscape of Sarajevo a National Monument, but the plot owned by the CB is not covered by that Decision.

Although the Decision itself is still the subject of debate among the professionals and as such is rather unclear, we must emphasize that this fact is not disputable to us and that we will respect all decisions of the competent institutions. If there is any example of a good host when it comes to taking care about national monuments, then it is the CB.

The building in Maršala Tita Street is also a national monument, as well as movable property that enjoys the very same status. We have been successfully taking care of this downtown building for years. Recently, a complete restoration of the statues at the entrance to the building was done, which lasted for several months, and the staircase was replaced in such a way that we managed to obtain the original stone that had been used to make the first steps of this building.

I think that says enough about our attitude towards national monuments. We are also committed to the possibility that part of the new building will be open to the public and that in addition to our numismatics and other data on the Central Bank role and importance for the country to be presented, we also present any archaeological exhibits that may be found during the construction works.

We have a lot of good ideas and it is still not the time to discover them all, but we are confident that they will be welcome with approval, because there is no reason not to be.

 

"We are the biggest advocates of the park, but its arrangement is in the competence of the Municipality of Centar"

What do you consider most important about the future building and how will it contribute to the local community?

From the beginning, we have been aware of the great importance of this site for the local community and for this reason the appearance of the future building is important to us. That is why the design selection took so long. I would like to point out just a few important facts.

The plot owned by the Bank covers an area of ​​2,290 square meters. On that plot, there is currently a concrete parking lot without green vegetation and it occupies close to 11 percent of the total area of ​​the site. The chosen conceptual design envisages in the ground plan that the area of ​​the building will occupy almost 940 square meters.

On the remaining part of our plot, more than half of it, as can be seen from the very photos, a green area is also planned. In addition, the complete roof of the future building is designed as a green roof, for its fitting into the environment.

According to the adopted Regulatory Plan, the allowed height of the planned building is 15 meters. The conceptual design envisages this maximum height only for the rear part of the building facing the hospital (i.e. the General Hospital "Prim. Dr. Abdulah Nakaš), while the part directed towards the park gradually descends slightly - it is lower than allowed and with the green roof blends completely with the surroundings.

The building is maximally recessed towards the border of the plot along Kranjčevićeva street and all road and other access to it will be exclusively from Kranjčevićeva street, where the pedestrian and car access has been expanded also at the expense of the Bank's plot. Thus, in no way will the daily performance of the Bank's business affect the simultaneous carrying on of any other activities in the park.

As the competition Commission emphasized: "This is a time of breaking down stereotypes with good arguments."

I think that all of the above confirms enough the importance that the Bank bestows to this Project and how much it is in our interest, too, for the entire park to take on the appearance of the proposed solutions, and we have no reason to doubt that it will be so. Especially when it comes to the implementation of the Project within the competence of the CB.

We must emphasize that everything which we have shown in the presentation on the conceptual design represents real and realistic projections and that the entire site can and should look like this.

How much the Municipal authorities will be willing to commit themselves to landscaping and arranging the park with all the necessary facilities remains to be seen. But, we can certainly be a good partner in that. Our message is: stability, trust and integrity in everything we do.