From e.d.wardini@easteur-orient.uio.no Mon Jun  5 21:18:52 1995
Date: Sun, 28 May 1995 16:16:22 +0200
From: Elie Wardini <e.d.wardini@easteur-orient.uio.no>
To: borrel@mashallah.ludvigsen.hiof.no
Subject: nyhetsmelding


Subject: SOLIDERE groundbreaking ceremony this month

    By Andrew Tarnowski
     BEIRUT, Sept 5 (Reuter) - Lebanon's SOLIDERE company will hold a
ground breaking ceremony on September 21 to launch the postwar
reconstruction of central Beirut, company chairman Nasser Chamaa said.
     The event, which will start what the company calls "the major urban
redevelopment of the 1990s," will be sponsored by Lebanese President Elias
Hrawi, Chamaa told Reuters.
     SOLIDERE, formed in May with $1.82 billion capital, is poised to start
reconstruction but has not yet chosen a contractor for the first stage of
the infrastructure work, Chamaa said in a weekend interview.
     Eleven bids have been opened, ranging from $63 million to $136
million, but the board of directors has not yet decided which to choose.
     The infrastructure work, expected to take 18 months, includes roads,
utility networks, tunnels and bridges, landscaping and laying out public
squares and spaces.
     Asked when the work would begin, Chamaa said: "We're working on this.
I don't want to commit on a date.
     "It's already happening. The demolition is ongoing and we're working
out details of the contract with the infrastructure contractor."
     SOLIDERE has already begun demolishing war-damaged buildings and
shifting an estimated three million tonnes of rubble from the 1.8 million
square metres site.
     Explosives, wrecking balls and bulldozers have swiftly demolished 120
buildings in recent weeks, creating a vast empty lot in the heart of the
city open to the Mediterranean shore.
     Feyrouz, the Lebanese singer famed throughout the Arab World, will
give the reconstruction of Beirut an emotional sendoff with a concert at
the site on September 17.
     Then SOLIDERE will demolish another 260 buildings in the next five-six
months, Chamaa said.
     Only 266 of the original buildings of the central district will be
preserved and restored. Some are being saved for architectural merit and
others because they are inhabited.
     Chamaa said other construction and rehabilitation projects are in the
pipeline.
     Architects have been hired for seven projects expected to start early
in 1995: replacing Beirut's old souks (street markets), rehabilitating a
35-storey pre-war office block, building two new office blocks and two
residential buildings and building a SOLIDERE headquarters.
     Chamaa said work is also expected to start on November 1 on restoring
eight early 20th century traditional buildings in the central district.
  REUTER