Reggio Emilia The first rumors appeared at the end of February, when there began to be talk of a negotiation between the owner of the former Fiere, Giorgio Bosi, and the Maramotti family, determined to focus on Mancasale and the Northern Area. Now it’s official. The new Max Mara Fashion Group Fashion Polo it will be built in the area of the former trade fairs and will be characterized by a major urban regeneration project, which also includes a Fashion University. This is what is contained in the public initiative implementation plan adopted on Thursday by the council, destined to be voted on by the city council. Max Mara’s investment is estimated at 100 million euros, the largest ever made in the province, and will give new life to the exhibition center, thus definitively putting behind us the long process of liquidation concluded in 2019, when the Correggio native Giorgio Bosi, CEO of the Pibiplast Group, acquired the Mancasale pavilions. Since then, many have wondered what the future of the fairs would be, which through the company A.Mor Srl, also owned by the Bosi family, were made available to the Local Health Authority to transform them into a vaccination center during the pandemic. Now the turning point. The Max Mara project involves the construction of a management center capable of hosting more than 800 people with offices, design spaces, services and show rooms, as well as two warehouses capable of satisfying the group’s logistical needs.
The industrial choice
Max Mara Fashion Group has recently rationalized its industrial structure by identifying two companies, Max Mara Srl and Dedimax Srlas the subjects to whom you delegate the industrial and commercial development of your brands. Max Mara Srl, which deals with “premium” brands, has long had a campus in via Giulia Maramotti, while Dedimax Srl, to which the brands of the “contemporary” segment refer, carries out its activities on different sites, located throughout the territory, which do not they have the dimensions and functional characteristics that guarantee the further development of the company. Hence the need for a new, more suitable space for Dedimax Srl, capable of hosting both the warehouses and the management center in a single site. The choice of the former Fairs was considered strategic: the proximity of the new Fashion Center to the Mediopadana and the A1 toll booth, as well as to the Max Mara campus, will make it possible to reduce connection times with the most important Italian and foreign cities, determining further synergies between the two companies of the group in numerous areas, starting from that of product research and development, forming an international center of excellence in the field of fashion.
The project
The area subject to redevelopment has a surface area of 13 hectaresie – after the complete demolition of the existing structures – provides for their regeneration, through the identification of a green belt along via Filangieri with the planting of over 2,000 trees and shrubs, a new access on via Moro and the construction of three volumes intended for the group’s management and logistics functions, for a built area of approximately 47 thousand square metres. Overall, the new intervention represents a substantial doubling of the current Max Mara campus. The new buildings will be self-sufficient from an energy point of view and immersed in green spaces.
Competition
The architectural design of the buildings that will host the management and production functions will be selected on the basis of an international competition, now in its final phase, which will conclude by mid-July. As has already happened for the Campus, awarded theThe Best Office Architecture award from the prestigious Royal Institute of British Architects, the objective is to regenerate the area of the former trade fairs, giving it a strong qualitative characterization. The intervention will also bring with it the redevelopment and strengthening of public lighting in via Filangeri, the safe cycle-pedestrian connection between the former trade fair area and the Max Mara campus west of the Calatrava bridges, as well as the redevelopment of via Majorana, with the creation of protected cycle and pedestrian paths, a new lighting network and tree-lined strips on the sides of the road.
Times and Process
The public initiative implementation plan (Paip) called “Polo della Moda”, developed by Max Mara Fashion Group and the Municipality, was hired by the council on Thursday. The procedure for its definitive approval now involves the publication of the documents for the collection of the Observations and the subsequent preparation of the related counterarguments for adoption by the city council, scheduled for the end of the year. Subsequently, the Large Area Urban Planning Committee (Cuav) will be involved, which includes the Municipality itself, the Province and the Region, as well as the bodies responsible for environmental and safety matters. The definitive one is expected within the first half of 2025. The works will begin from the approval of the Plan, which will have an indicative duration of three years.
Not just Polo
Max Mara Fashion Group has undertaken two further regeneration initiatives. The first, on an abandoned area, acquiring the former Cantina di San Maurizio, next to an important production plant of the group specialized in the manufacturing of coats and jackets. The regeneration intervention of the area will lead to the creation of the “Max Mara University of Fashion Professions”, a permanent training center, as well as a place of research and development, with a view to collaboration with the university and high schools of the territory. The second, in the Mancasale Industrial Park, in via Calvi di Coenzo, with the regeneration of areas occupied by abandoned buildings, is aimed at creating a technologically advanced logistics structure for the Group company dedicated to the production of knitwear and jersey. L
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