Regulation for the “Cultural Garrison” to be built on Dorobantilor/The development of the future Cultural Center of Cluj must be ready in June 2025

Work at the Garrison is in full swing! , said the Cluj Cultural Center. Hall is preparing the opening next year of 2500 square meters of cultural spaces intended for the professional community from the cultural and creative sectors in Cluj in the Garrison building on Calea Dorobantilor no. 106. It is about a monument building that is being rehabilitated (within a project for which it relies on non-refundable funding) by the association Euras – AddConcept on the basis of a contract concluded with the City Hall at the beginning of 2023. The costs of the project were adjusted at the end of August 2023 at over 38.8 million lei, including VAT.

“When planning the spaces, we worked together with our members and the municipality, and together with them we will also work this year to develop a regulation for the use of the Garrison”, announced the Cluj Cultural Center Association.

The organization has 131 members, cultural institutions and organizations, universities, civil society and business associations, the local and county administration of Cluj. The center manages programs to develop the cultural sector and increase the impact of culture in society, in the fields of education, health and well-being, urban and rural development.

The association showed that the rehabilitation works of the building are in full swing and posted an aerial footage of the modernization site (Cover photo).

This organization is also going to move to this new space, the Cultural Garrison, where it originally proposed a Contemporary Art Center, but the project could no longer be implemented considering the demands of rehabilitating the building, a historical monument. Also, the City Hall intended to build on Calea Dorobantilor no. 106 a concert hall and a headquarters for the Transilvania Philharmonic, a project abandoned in the meantime. He later announced that he would only rehabilitate the Garrison building across the street with Norwegian funds, but the project was never implemented. Last year, a new source of funding was found.

The modernization works of the building on Dorobantilor (on the site where the City Hall abandoned the development of the Transilvania Cultural Center – Filarmonica headquarters) began in June 2023, and the execution term is two years.

The new Cultural Center in Cluj-Napoca is being rehabilitated in a project with non-refundable funding of over 38 million lei (according to the last adjustment made by the City Council in August 2023). The City Hall’s contribution to the ineligible expenses of the project is 4.3 million lei (including VAT), another 690,164,71 lei representing the contribution of 2% of the eligible value of the project.

At the beginning of 2023, the local administration signed the execution contract for the rehabilitation works of the building on Dorobantilor no. 106 with the Association SC Euras SRL and SC Addconcept SRL, having as its object the execution of works for the project “Restoration, revitalization and capitalization of the historical monument on B-dul 21 Decembrie 1989 no. 106 from Cluj-Napoca – pavilion B, in order to create a cultural center”. Work on the project began on June 9, 2023.

On August 23, the Northwest Regional Development Agency launched the call for projects for the Conservation, protection and sustainable and competitive valorization of cultural and historical heritage, including ensuring and improving access to them (URBAN), axis on which the City Hall submitted a project for investment financing.

The redevelopment involves the rehabilitation, restoration and expansion (atticing), as well as the endowment of the monument building with (part, floor and attic) for the purpose of setting up a cultural center. Cultural consolidations, the rehabilitation and restoration of interior spaces and facades, the arrangement of the basement, ground floor and attic for exhibitions, cultural events and related spaces are proposed.

The Cultural Center would be ready in June 2025.