Taipei Deputy Mayor Teng Chia-chi (鄧家基) said Farglory Group chairman Chao Teng-hsiung (趙藤雄) yesterday backpedaled on his stance that the Taipei City Government should buy the Taipei Dome and that the two parties would work toward a consensus not to demolish the building.
In an effort to “put matters into perspective,” Chao on Monday released a video, in which he accused the city government’s handling of the build-operate-transfer (BOT) project, dating to then-Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) first-term in office, as “political manipulations.”
Chao said that the city government’s suspending construction since May last year has cost Farglory about NT$5 billion (US$148.3 million) and that the city should hire an objective third-party to evaluate the Dome and its buy-back value.
Teng, who represents the city in its negotiations with the company regarding the Dome, said that at a meeting yesterday Chao said the Dome was not for sale, which Teng said aligned plans that Farglory and the city government have set for the Taipei Dome: complete the construction.
Teng said that averting the demolition of the Taipei Dome is an “established goal” between the two parties.
“I believe that this signals a consensus between chairman Chao and the city government. It is an important consensus,” Teng said.
He said that any further action by the city government regarding the Taipei Dome would be carried out with public safety as a priority, while urging Farglory to provide the architectural drawings needed for reviews by the city’s urban design review committee and the Taiwan Architecture and Building Center so that construction can be resumed.
Teng sidestepped questions about reports he branded the construction of the Taipei Dome as “scrap metal,” saying that the term was “the media’s paraphrase.”
A report by the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) quoted Teng as saying in response to Chao’s request: “If the city government were to buy a pile of scrap metal waiting to be dismantled, there would be a huge price difference.”
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