«We are used to having discussions with the local community: there is always something to discuss if you carry out high-level and large-scale projects, 10% are always against it. But in the end only success matters. We won and we are building the largest shopping center in Bolzano. We are investing more than 500 million euros and, if Bolzano wants to think big, I am willing to invest more.” Who knows if the bankruptcy of Signa Holding has dented the confidence of real estate magnate René Benko who, interviewed by Corriere dell’Alto Adige in 2018 at the inauguration of the Villa Eden luxury resort in Gardone Riviera, confessed: «How do I see myself in 20 years? Like now, but older and richer.” Benko who, just last Monday, reappeared in court in Innsbruck for the case on the bankruptcy of the holding company he founded, with creditors demanding around 2 billion euros
The bankruptcy procedure
He would never have imagined, five years later, that he would find himself on the front pages of half of Europe due to the sensational bankruptcy proceedings filed at the Commercial Court of Vienna. A sad curtain that many Pythia, in Alto Adige, they had already predicted ten years ago, when the draft of the WaltherPark project designed by star architect David Chipperfield, officially presented to the Municipality of Bolzano, raised more than one eyebrow. Too ambitious, too scenic, too expensive, too suspicious. The appeals to the TAR they followed one another, accompanied by a first rejection in the city council in 2015 which cost the former mayor Luigi Spagnolli his seat. But to mark a new course for the urban redevelopment project on an area of 120 thousand square meters between via Alto Adige, via Perathoner and the Stazione park is the plebiscite of the popular consultative referendum of spring 2016: that 64% yes (21,911 votes) at the then Kaufhaus closes every question. Commissioner Michele Penta ratifies together with president Arno Kompatscher the program agreement after the Administrative Court had also paved the way for the realization of the project. The goal is to open the construction site in March 2017 to inaugurate the work in autumn 2020. Work will instead start in the summer of 2019 with a duration initially estimated at three and a half years
«We are working in the interests of Bolzano»
In the meantime Benko’s name it is already linked to the Gries Village and, in 2021, the Austrian tycoon’s plan expands to Virgolo: an investment of 170 million euros, of which 40 for the cable car. The first clouds gather up Signa with the pandemic: the lockdown imposes stops and slowdowns on the works, then the costs of the works skyrocket raw materials that are increasingly difficult to find, so there are wars, energy crises and aquifers. The construction site seems to be at a standstill and, at a local level, discontent is increasing. Environmental associations and the opposition, in the Municipality and in the Province, raise their voices but reassurances arrive from the holding company: «We are working in the interest of Bolzano. Based on the surveys we have a positive participation of over 70%: we cannot please everyone and that is not even our goal”, replied Hager in September 2022, promising “work finished in 2024”.
The tsunami
In June last year the times were further extended: «Yes half of the houses sold. Inauguration in spring 2025″. Not even six months later it arrives the tsunami, anticipated by the rumours: «The real estate giant declares bankruptcy», headline the Austrian newspapers, «the Signa group, short of liquidity, is desperately looking for 500-600 million euros to repay its maturing debts». King Midas is naked. There are those who tremble and those who laugh under their mustaches. Hager, meanwhile, he distances himself from his Austrian partner and, last March, he launched a Spring Festival with the doors open to the construction site: «In Bolzano work is continuing normally – he reassures while, in half of Europe, the Signa maxi-construction sites have been at a standstill for months -. Construction work on WaltherPark is proceeding at a rapid pace and the inauguration of the complex is scheduled for spring 2025.”
