It was to be a spectacular operation. A small architectural feat coupled with a political gesture. It would have shown the will of the mayor (PS) of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, and his team to sew up the urban fabric and build sports facilities in the capital, despite the lack of available land.
But the large “gymnasium-bridge”, which was to span the ring road at the Porte de Vincennes, will not see the light of day. The decision is not yet official, but is no longer in doubt, corroborating sources indicate. ” It’s dead “, sums up an elected official. “We are working on alternative solutions”, specifies Frédéric Luccino, one of the directors of Semapa, the city’s satellite company, in charge of the project.
In principle, the gymnasium-bridge should have been delivered in March 2020. An architectural firm had been chosen, a precise plan adopted. Overlooking the eight lanes of the “periphery”, the building was to integrate a gymnasium for handball, basketball and volleyball, bleachers with at least 200 seats, a dojo, a dance hall … A name had already been given to it. attributed: that of Victor Perez, a Jewish boxer, broke at 33, in 1945, during the “death marches”.
Only, “Building a large gymnasium with a single volume, without a post, above the void, is complicated”, we admit to Semapa. And the quotes given by the construction companies turned out to be much higher than expected. Instead of the 12.5 million euros anticipated, “The bill would be roughly double”, entrusts an elected official with the facts of the file. « [A ce prix-là,] it would not be reasonable to continue the project, he adds. We are going to build cheaper sports facilities elsewhere in the neighborhood. “
Assets that are no longer enough
The Victor-Perez building is not the only one called into question. Three projects of the same type announced at Porte Maillot and Porte d’Aubervilliers are also in the hot seat. For a good part, the buildings-bridges which were to rise above the Parisian ring road are therefore stopped, overtaken by an economic, ecological and political reality more complex than on paper.
A whole series of bridge buildings had been imagined in Paris in the 2010s. A new generation born from the conjunction of three factors. On the one hand, building professionals now know how to construct buildings of this type, without conventional foundations. On the other hand, land has become so rare and expensive in the capital that this innovation seemed economically viable, the additional cost of the site being in principle partially offset by free access to the space located above the ring road. Politically, finally, these buildings covering ends of the ring road were presented as a way of connecting the capital and its suburbs, to erase a marked physical and symbolic border.
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