Who wants to acquire the Vesoul Ward family jewels? Plus the Chinese anyway. Investors from the Middle Kingdom were once interested in selling the former Paul-Morel hospital to create the “Château Vigneron”, a luxury hotel project announced at 26 million euros. The file finally fell apart in 2020. For two years, it’s back to square one. Vesul’s heritage, however attractive, is hot on investors.
Besançon has seen the same thing with its former Saint-Jacques hospital where the Vinci group recently withdrew from the redevelopment project where it was planned to build housing, a concert hall, a retirement home. Hope could be reborn in Vesoul. The former Paul-Morel hospital, an architectural jewel stripped of asbestos in February 2020 at a cost of 600,000 euros, awaits its future buyer.
On Thursday 15 December, during the last city council of the year, President Alain Chrétien launched a “Call for expressions of interest” aimed at “nominating people who undertake to acquire and propose a rehabilitation project for the former hospital estimated at 900,000 euros and the former Banque de France building, estimated at 600,000 euros. “We will not necessarily choose the one that gives the most but the one that has the best design,” announces the president of the agglomeration. “Are we heading towards Qatar? “, questions Sébastien Poyard, city and municipal councilor, with irony. “What you are announcing is only a perspective. There is nothing really concrete. I am afraid that no one will come forward for Vesoul,” he said, an argument undermined by Alain Chrétien. ” I want to raise Vesoul. Why wouldn’t the inhabitants of the agglomeration be entitled to the best? Vauchoux, a small city, had a Michelin star! Why not one star in Vesoul”.
“No Shops in the Old Hospital”
The call for events has several objectives: to transfer the land to a private or public operator, guarantee healthy competition, ensure the sustainability of the project.
The community has defined the project: “there will be no shops on the site of the old hospital. It is 5 minutes from the city center: be careful to fill the empty cells in the historic center already”, continues the Agglomerato. Tertiary, service or tourist activities can be established there. For the Banque de France building, priority will be given to residential hotel and restaurant projects. A selection committee will study all offers from 15 May. The selection of the winner is scheduled for July 2023, “a little early” according to Carole Michel. The Sprawl doesn’t want to stay. The more time passes, the more the shell of these majestic buildings that hope to recover the luster of the past crumble.
