Nicosia municipality is pushing ahead with plans to turn the State Fair site in Engomi into Cyprus’s largest urban park, complete with two lakes and vast green spaces.
The project would cost an estimated €50 million, including renovation of eight exhibition pavilions that would be kept from the original 55, mayor Charalambos Prountzos said. Pavilion work alone would run to €25 million.
Buildings would occupy just 10% of the 240,000-square-metre fairground site, with the rest turned into parkland.
Prountzos stressed his figures are rough estimates. A study on the Fair site and neighbouring SOPAZ area has been completed, with final decisions expected soon. The municipality will launch an architectural competition with ETEK to design the park.
Two retention lakes
The District Local Government Organisation has included two retention lakes in its planning. The lakes will also irrigate the park’s green spaces, Prountzos said.
The area will connect to Agios Dometios via cycle path, with funding already secured.
Road plan scrapped
The municipality is rejecting government plans to link Makedonias Avenue with Heroes Avenue. Organised Engomi residents also want the project cancelled.
If Lefkotheos Avenue is widened for bus use, there’s no need for a second parallel road in the area, the mayor said. Makarios Avenue should stay a neighbourhood road, not become a major route cutting through residential areas.
Ideas for the site include a contemporary art museum and using Greece’s pavilion, but final decisions will come later, Prountzos said.
€2m stopgap
The municipality wants €2 million from the government for temporary improvements – tidying the exterior, electrical installations, cleaning – until final plans are settled. This would also help those working in the exhibitions sector.
Nicosia municipality has requested maintenance of pavilions 4, 5 and 6, covering 10,000 square metres. Long-term, it wants a 15,000-square-metre conference and exhibition space at SOPAZ, with private investors expected to fund and operate it.
Both Prountzos and parliamentary interior committee chairman Aristos Damianou acknowledged Nicosia needs adequate exhibition space of around 15,000 square metres, though not necessarily at the Fair site.
Damianou said road projects shouldn’t burden residents.
Residents want park only
Local residents insist the Fair site should be used only as an urban park.
The Public Works Department is checking whether existing buildings are structurally sound enough to maintain and use.
MPs Christos Christofias, Dimitris Dimitriou, Alexandra Attalidou and Stavros Papadouris backed the urban park solution favoured by organised Engomi residents.
A tripartite committee – central government, Nicosia municipality and EVEL – is expected to meet in March to review the study findings and make decisions on the Fair site and SOPAZ’s future.
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