The history of Piazza Cambiaghi goes back a long way. Built in the early 2000s, it was designed as a small business center that acted as a business card for the city.
Over time, however, due to a controversial agreement on the use of the area between the Municipality and the real estate company that built it – dating back to 1988 – its management has become difficult, preventing the public administration from intervening where there are it was necessary. For some time now the area has lacked maintenance and cleaning, the lack of which has made it a place of degradation and neglect, with a very poor road surface – the number of potholes and depressions is wasted – and a portico which has been occupied for years by homeless people, which has become an open-air Vespasian and a place of illicit trafficking. In recent years there have been many reports from citizens of dangerous or annoying incidents that have occurred in the square, which have made it no longer a safe place to frequent. What brought a turning point to the situation was the action of the current municipal council, which managed to complete a negotiation with the Edilcentro company, owner of part of the area, which had built the real estate complex in the 90s between Colombo and Visconti streets, carrying out various urban renovation interventions and an underground car park. At the end of the negotiation the Municipality managed to have the ownership of the enormous city area definitively transferred.
The document of agreement between the two parties, signed last February 2nd, provides in particular that Piazza Cambiaghi is to all intents and purposes registered as a public square, with the underground car park also remaining municipal property, even if the company will benefit from the rights of surface of the underground car park for another 80 years. However, it is not yet known what will become of the part of the square that remains privately owned, close to Via Visconti: the previous council’s plan designated it for commercial spaces and residences, but no private individual has yet come forward to use it .
AS
