"Zalgiris" without home!

[SlickroX]

"Zalgiris" without home!

The idea of construction of new arena has appeared in 1998, but till now it is
not realized. In 2005 the international tender for the best project of new
arena has been organized; the city mayoralty promised to render annual
financial support.

As a result, the tender was won by one of the largest French building
companies Bouygues Batiment International with an annual turn in 7 billion
euro.

Since January, 2006 the huge volume of work has been done, including has
been concluded the contract between the French party and municipality of
the city of Kaunas.

However city officials till now have not given out the official sanction to
construction of the arena, calculated a minimum on 10 thousand places, and
in fact a season 2009/10 in Euroleague and Europe championship 2011 which
will pass in Lithuania, not far away at all.

Unfortunately after such a long and already done almost all work, two days
ago (July 19) government of Kaunas announced, that they cancelled contract
with building companie "Bouygues Batiment International"

Basketball fans, we shall rescue "Zhalgiris"!

Source:

http://forums.interbasket.net/showthread.php?t=2174&page=2&highlight=Zalgiris+arena

http://www.miestai.net/forumas/showthread.php?t=3317

http://www.kaunasarena.info/ziniasklaida/20070719delfilt.html

http://www.eurosport.ru/basketball/euroleague/2007-2008/sport_sto1250402.shtml

[re5pectas]

SlickroX, my friend, You should also post the arguments of over opinion.
The problem is - prise (imho, deeper - municipality ); BBI wants around 450mio LT (130mio Eur); but there are some other projects/sugestions, to build arena for 200 mio lt (58mio EUR); that's almost twice cheeper...
Anyway, I'm becoming more and more pesimistic about Kaunas' municipality and arena building...

[Marius123]

SlickroX, my friend, You should also post the arguments of over opinion.
The problem is - prise (imho, deeper - municipality ); BBI wants around 450mio LT (130mio Eur); but there are some other projects/sugestions, to build arena for 200 mio lt (58mio EUR); that's almost twice cheeper...

Concerning price - yes, Kaunas municipality has just rejected the French proposal of a more expensive and better arena (the "iceberg on the island" project) ... OK, they can always have a cheaper variant. (Actually, speaking of proposals "twice as cheap" ... you can always make an arena three, four, five times cheaper... build it of plywood and sheet iron ... put up a tent on the field for 10,000 spectators - it'll be 10 times cheaper maybe, or maybe 100 times? ... you get my point ... )

Not to belittle the competing variants - but the positions for comparison are not equal among them. First - because of arena quality / features. Second - because of the level of preparedness of competing projects. I'm not sure at all that Rakauskas' project would really cost as much as he's claiming ... And Miliūnas' Tablet/Coliseum on the Nemunas Island (the current official project pursued) will need further 5 months to complete technical documentation, before stating the final price (which probably will be lower than the French proposition).

Anyway, I'm becoming more and more pesimistic about Kaunas' municipality and arena building...

So true...

They will easily build an arena which is suitable for economic and political groupings from Vilnius.

But they're not strong enough to build a modern arena which would make Kaunas proud, put Siemens Arena in Vilnius into the shade and touch powerfull local Lithuanian interests.

Personally, I think the variant proposed by the French contractors (Bouygues) was an expedient choice for Kaunas. OK, the price was there, but it was bearable for Kaunas ... If Panevėžys is able to pay 5 mln. litas per year (2.7% of the municipal budget) for their 5,000-seat (or so) arena - why can't Kaunas pay 8 mln. litas per year (1.4% of the municipal budget) per year, what the heck... Why all these talks of "over-priced jewel", etc. etc. etc.

[penzias]

I agree that 130 mio EUR is too much. The Arena built in Madrid that will host the Final round of Eurobasket has over 15000 seats and i guess it was even cheaper.

[ArkadiosV2]

130M fot a 10 000 capacity basketball arena is way too much, but that's what you get when you sign a contract with the 2nd biggest development company in EU. Which of course they sub-contract to smaller companies and they sub-contract it to local companies, so you get a poorly built arena worth 130M Euros.

[Marius123]

130M fot a 10 000 capacity basketball arena is way too much

To be precise, the project was / is for 12,500 spectators.

The argument of the Frenchmen is that it's not solely "basketball arena", but a highest-class universal complex, with some important features (that would be absent in cheaper variants): possibilities of handy transformation between 3,000 and 12,500 spectators (covering the Kaunas' need for a congress palace / house, which is in the plans already), good acoustics, constructional capabilities of mounting heavy sound equipment for concerts (roof structure strength), etc. OK, I'm no architect, so can't argue about the details.

According to "Bouygues", recent similar-class universal arenas in Budapest and Prague cost 125 mln. EUR and 200 mln. EUR respectively.

[Bullock]

that village doesn't deserved good basketball arena

[LuDux]

Topic should be Zalgiris without Iceberg

[sashikas]

that village doesn't deserved good basketball arena

How smart from you to notice that. I am sure you are the one who can judge whether someone have deserved something or didn't. Good boy... Now you can go and prepare your homework.

[Bullock]

Sorry but I'm 27 but it still doesnt change anything. kaunas=village

[Marius123]

Topic should be Zalgiris without Iceberg

With a home for now, the old trusty Sporto Halė is serving all right after almost 70 years. And I'm always happy everytime I go to that historical building to support the historical team.

The talk would be of homeless Žalgiris from 2009, if the Euroleague enforces its arena requirements... Žalgiris representatives have been throwing out innuendos about possibly playing Euroleague matches in Rīga (Latvia) ... Possibly just for propaganda, in order to speed up the Kaunas Arena matters. But who knows, maybe I'll have to look for a decent map of Rīga, come time...

[re5pectas]

Sorry but I'm 27 but it still doesnt change anything. kaunas=village

So behave like that.

We are in IBN, not in lith forum, were you can write any bullshit. I like IBN for quite inteligent users, who can show respect, even to the biggest rivals, especially in midseason...

P.S. I usually attend Rytas games and stand in 115 sector near to other Rytas fans.

[Marius123]

that village doesn't deserved good basketball arena

Žalgiris surely deserves a good arena for all their tradition.

Concerning Kaunas - at least the city citizens deserve it because of their passion for basketball and Žalgiris. The bond with the team is very strong. The city has 400 thousand inhabitants, plus add the surrounding territories which gravitate naturally to it - I'm no expert, but an arena of 12 thousand places is appropriate IMHO. (Also considerint the financing implications for the city budget, of which I wrote above in percentage terms). But there are other aspects as well, like incompetence of the municipal authorities / politicians, where Kaunas doesn't fare well.

Concerning this village / city thing... Why do you feel such an urging need to stray OT and escalate this topic over here? Go to the United Nations forum and talk whatever you like, how you're proud of your city's urban culture... A few new shiny shopping malls, uh? a couple of so-called "sky-scrapers" built, the tallest in the whole village called Lithuania? you even have night clubs, don't you ... how many places to choose from for live jazz performances on any given night? but beware - we have plenty of people from locations which are at much more advanced stages of their development, and your village won't look that modern compared to their places ... and most importantly - nobody gives a heck about who's "cittier" and "cittiest" ... (me among them - no problem admitting I'm coming from a village, grew up in a village, lived both in rural and urban environment, and now living in a village - yes, away from Kaunas City ... probably I'm inferior because I grew up on the grass rather than asphalt ) ...

Live your life in your hyper-modern megapolis and let Kaunas live its own .

[kestas]

They will easily build an arena which is suitable for economic and political groupings from Vilnius.

But they're not strong enough to build a modern arena which would make Kaunas proud, put Siemens Arena in Vilnius into the shade and touch powerfull local Lithuanian interests.

Personally, I think the variant proposed by the French contractors (Bouygues) was an expedient choice for Kaunas. OK, the price was there, but it was bearable for Kaunas ... If Panevėžys is able to pay 5 mln. litas per year (2.7% of the municipal budget) for their 5,000-seat (or so) arena - why can't Kaunas pay 8 mln. litas per year (1.4% of the municipal budget) per year, what the heck... Why all these talks of "over-priced jewel", etc. etc. etc.

I sign under every single word there. besides, I'm afraid Miliunas' project is even more unreallistic and it will give even more arguments into the hands of Rakauskas, who is seriously suffering from porsonality disorders (you should hear his radio shows on his own state-wideradio station).

I'm really dissapointed in the way things turned out for Kaunas. we've become the victims of poor municipal governaments and, most of all, of ill strategic objectives of Vilnius... truth is, Lithuania doesn't want Kaunas to be where it always was. this results in constant smashing of Kaunas in attemts to create a negative, untrue image of our town. the fruits of such state policy are visible already. the brainwashing is bearing fruits in the form of distorted minds as the one of our friend Bullock here. and the funny thing is this policy will not help Vilnius in the long term and it will certainly harm the country as a whole. sad but true.

k

[re5pectas]

I'm really dissapointed in the way things turned out for Kaunas. we've become the victims of poor municipal governaments and, most of all, of ill strategic objectives of Vilnius... truth is, Lithuania doesn't want Kaunas to be where it always was. this results in constant smashing of Kaunas in attemts to create a negative, untrue image of our town. the fruits of such state policy are visible already. the brainwashing is bearing fruits in the form of distorted minds as the one of our friend Bullock here. and the funny thing is this policy will not help Vilnius in the long term and it will certainly harm the country as a whole. sad but true.

k

I would say, that you sound quite paranoic here. Be more optimistic, things are not so bad and dark.