The Taipei City Government yesterday approved 17 of the 28 work items Farglory Group said it wants to carry out at the Taipei Dome complex to resolve public safety risks, while rejecting nine and accepting two conditionally.
The Taipei Department of Urban Development made the announcement following a two-hour meeting with Farglory representatives and members of the city’s structural architecture, civil engineering, structural engineering and geotechnical engineering unions.
Farglory last week delivered the list of work items to the municipal government in the hope of addressing safety concerns outlined in a ruling by the High Administrative Court in Taipei.
Department Commissioner Lin Jou-min (林洲民) said yesterday’s discussions had a “positive” and “rational” undercurrent.
However, participants sparred over the necessity of completing the Dome’s curtain wall, proposed by the firm to resolve weighting and corrosion issues.
Lin said Farglory representatives believed the work to be necessary to increase the facility’s mass, but added that department officials and union members disagreed.
Lin said that corrosion in the Dome’s exterior could be fixed by applying intumescent paint, adding that if Farglory insists on working on the wall, it should provide scientific proof that doing so would help resolve the weighting issue.
Farglory’s proposals to install titanium panels on the Dome’s roof and complete work in a underground parking area connecting all five buildings in the complex were granted conditional approval.
Citing the city’s July 19 suggestion to Farglory, Lin said that the firm should convert the Dome’s first and second floors into semi-open areas to facilitate evacuation in the event of an emergency.
Therefore, the city only agreed to let Farglory install titanium panels on levels higher than the second floor in areas above the Dome’s ring, he said.
The firm should not work on staircases in the parking area, because the city is still determining how many stairs there should be in the area to ensure safety, he said.
Lin urged Farglory to swiftly deliver a detailed work plan to the city for review, adding that to speed up the review process, the firm is encouraged to send the plan in several parts instead of waiting several months to complete it before submission.
Farglory spokesman Jacky Yang (楊舜欽) echoed Lin’s suggestion that breaking the plan down into several pieces would help the review process, adding that the firm would comply with the city’s order that it submit a work plan.
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