The new judicial citadel of Catania may not be completed within the expected time frame. The news, learned from Sicilian newspaper from qualified sources, concerns one of the most important construction sites currently open in the Etna capital and is destined to reignite the controversy over a work which, in recent years, has divided public opinion. On the one hand, those who enthusiastically welcomed the idea of merging a large part of the judicial offices currently scattered around the city along the seafront, on the other, those who would have liked to see a public space created from the demolition of the former post office building without new flows of concrete.
Judicial citadel of Catania, reconstruction
The construction site, which started in August 2022 after a slowdown due to an appeal to the TAR presented by the company that came second in the ranking, continued at different paces and without any particular setbacks. However, now there are more than one reasons that could jeopardize the completion of the citadel by September next year, the date set by the timetable for the completion of construction.
At the origin of everything there would be a series of critical issues in the execution of what was foreseen by the project. Or rather the difficulty of managing to ensure that what was envisaged in the design phase is achieved with the sums allocated: the contract was awarded, in the spring of two years ago, to the Engineering Costruzioni Colombrita company for the value of approximately 25 and a half million euros. This figure was arrived at following the reduction of 18.33 percent proposed during the tender phase. However, once the construction site had started, it would have been realized that it might not be sufficient to guarantee compliance with the particular requirements contained in the project documents.
Judicial citadel, problems in the works
“This is a very complex project, a building conceived with particular technologies which involve the use of particular systems to cushion the effects of possible earthquakes,” comments one source to the QdS. The project was drawn up by a temporary group of professionals which included the associated firm Cibinel-Laurenti-Martocchia and which also saw the contribution of the Catanese firm Stancanelli. “According to the construction company, some design plans were not as refined as expected and this was creating problems in the works,” confirms the source.
The civil engineering of Catania will follow the works, acting as the contracting authority. The project, which won competition from several dozen other proposals, dates back to the time when Natale Zuccarello, the former chief engineer who was later arrested in the Genius blitz and who later agreed to a plea bargain, was in charge of the offices in via Lago di Nicito. for corruption in the context of the awarding of maintenance work on roads and waterways. Today, however, the role of sole manager of the procedure is the chief engineer Gaetano Laudani. Laudani himself, according to what appears to the QdS, has received complaints from the Colombrita company in recent months.
Last December, the Civil Engineers approved a variant appraisal worth approximately two million euros which will integrate the greater expenses incurred due to the increase in the costs of some materials but also for the discovery of a quantity of rocks in the area below the former post office building which would be far superior to that expected and deriving from the tests carried out in the phase preceding the drafting of the project. Furthermore, the rocks would have been even more resistant than what one would have expected.
The verification of the Sicilian newspaper
Despite the decision to increase the sums available to the company, the risk of not seeing the citadel completed by September 2025 would remain. Added to this is another fact: although neither the Civil Engineers nor private individuals want to talk about ongoing frictions, the Sicilian newspaper has verified the news according to which the company has begun to put down on paper – through what in the world of procurement are called “reserves” and which can form the basis for a future dispute – what, in its own words, is not going well in the right direction.
On the opposite front, however, the Civil Engineering Department – and consequently the regional department for Public Works – would not have failed to remind the owners of Engineering Construction Colombrita that the tender was launched with the criterion of the most economically advantageous offer . That is, that method that rewards not only the economic reduction, but also the technical improvements proposed to the project. Knowledge of which in detail, therefore, is taken for granted from the moment one decides to participate in the race.
