Colosseum restoration work bid estimated at €23 million

The Italian head of Tod’s shoe company Diego Della Valle offered to restore the Colosseum, with negotiations which had already started following a problematic tender for the project as news reports estimated the bid at €23 million.

The founder of Tod’s luxury leathergoods says visitors will have access to a quarter more of Rome’s Colosseum after a planned restoration.

He told a news conference that bids for contracts on the restoration will open at the end of July. Work is expected to begin in autumn.

The Colosseum has been blackened by pollution and rocked by vibrations from a nearby subway line. Mr Della Valle is urging his entrepreneur friends to step up and help fix ailing Italian landmarks, including Pompeii and Venice. Italy is chronically short of funds to maintain, protect and clean Italy’s artistic and archaeological heritage.

According to the Business News online the first phase of Colosseum, the retail development of Nova Imobiliare, will open in autumn. The retail park, whose construction is being financed by the Bank of Cyprus, will host tenants such as the first Leroy Merlin store in Romania, electronics retailer Altex and a Carrefour hypermarket.The Colosseum development constitutes a total of 190,000 square metres covered shopping mall and a stand alone retail park, with more than 480 shops and over 10,000 parking spaces, constructed on a site of over 600,000 square metres in the Chitila area, northwest Bucharest. The investment is predicted to provide over 5,000 jobs.

The second phase of the project consists of a shopping mall featuring a marble food court, a 12-screen cinema, a 20-lane bowling alley, restaurants and three shopping boulevards: Via Milano, hosting the most popular brands; Corso Capri, targeting fashion-conscious teenagers and young people; and Bellini Boulevard, a luxury avenue dedicated to exclusive names.

Its opening is scheduled for 2013. Of over 10,000 parking spaces, 8,000 will be covered.