"History" renovated with 10.9 million lei

Heritage buildings need help to tell their stories. The Mureş County Council and the Centru Regional Development Agency inaugurated the rehabilitation and restoration works of the Palace of Culture in Târgu Mureş, considered to be the Art Nouveau heritage of Transylvania, following a total investment of over 10.9 million lei. By completing the rehabilitation project of the Palace of Culture in Târgu Mureş, we want to increase the importance of tourism as an element that stimulates the economic growth of the county by capitalizing on the local and county cultural tourism potential, estimating a 6% increase in the number of visitors. The works concerned exterior repairs (carpentry, framing and cladding, fence plinth repairs), restoration of decorative metal parts, repair of stone elements, restoration of metal inscriptions on the facade and repairs of the electrical installation. The president of Mureş Regional Council, Peter Ferenc, said that the rehabilitation works will continue with the exhibition halls, which will be made from county funds. "The modernization of the interior of the Palace of Culture was initiated, let's not forget, by the president Lokodi Edita Emoke (former president of CJ Mureş, n.r.). Currently, the exhibition halls are in the process of being renovated, which we will complete with a financing own this year, so that the Palace can be visited and used in all its splendor," said Peter Ferenc. Inside, the staircase from the County Library, the Hall of Mirrors was repaired, the paintings on canvas, paneling and floors were refurbished, the organ in the Great Hall was repaired, and the lens was digitized. The European funding for the rehabilitation of the Palace of Culture through the Regional Operative Program was won in 2017 and the works were started in 2019 by a company from Ploiesti, but due to the delay and neglect of deadlines, the County Council terminated the contract in 2020, until at that moment the works were completed in proportion to 37%. The Mureş County Council launched the tender on the SICAP platform several times, and made small changes in the specification until the tender published for the fifth time was successfully completed. In April 2022, a contract worth almost 6,300,000 lei was signed for the completion of some works started within the project. The "Rehabilitation of the Palace of Culture" project had a total value of 10,918,428.75 lei, of which the non-refundable financial assistance is 6,076,895.95 lei, the own contribution of the Mureş County Council amounts to 382,389.71 lei, and the total value ineligible, including the related VAT, is 4,459,143.09 lei. The non-reimbursable financing was accessed through POR 2014-2020, Priority Axis 5 - Improvement of the urban environment, preservation, protection and sustainable valorization of cultural heritage, investment priority 5.1 - Conservation, protection, promotion and development of natural cultural heritage. The director of ADR Centru, Simion Creţu, emphasized the importance of the projects aimed at heritage buildings, noting that so far 67 projects worth 120 million euros have been financed through various financing programs ROP 2007-2013, pre-accession and ROP 2014 -2020.