The Taipei City Government yesterday said that construction on the long-suspended Taipei Dome can resume immediately, after it approved a request by the project’s main contractor, Farglory Group.
In a statement, the Taipei Construction Management Office said that after it on July 16 issued a new building permit, Farglory submitted revised design plans and an application to resume construction, which the office approved on Friday.
Construction had been suspended on the dome, near the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Xinyi District (信義), for more than five years due to disagreements between the city and the company over the safety of some of its features.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
However, Farglory later agreed to rebuild parts of the dome that were not constructed according to plans, reduce the venue’s overall capacity and increase fire safety and evacuation facilities, the office said.
While the office is allowing construction to resume, it also called attention to its ongoing disagreements with the contractor.
It said that Farglory must add safety and fireproofing features to several of the dome’s stairwells to receive a usage permit, citing Article 97 of the Building Technical Regulations (建築技術規則).
In addition, if Farglory wants the facility to be used to host concerts and other large-scale gatherings, it needs to pass a performance-based design review by the Taiwan Architecture and Building Center, the office said.
It added that it had fined Farglory and ordered it to remove cotton sound insulation, which the contractor had installed at the building site without permission.
Although Farglory has filed an appeal, the office has said it was within its rights under the Administrative Appeals Act (行政訴訟法) to issue fines and would continue to do so until the contractor removed the insulation.
The statement also said that Farglory had appointed a new supervising architect, but said the developer must still obtain the city’s authorization to appoint a new design architect.
The Taipei Dome project has been at a standstill since May 20, 2015, when the city ordered Farglory to halt construction over safety concerns, and the discovery of 79 building features that were not constructed according to design specifications.
At the time, Farglory had already completed 80 percent of the work needed to finish the multipurpose stadium.
In the intervening years, there have been multiple lawsuits between the contractor and the city over the resumption of construction.
During that time, the city government has also conducted seven urban design reviews, two environmental impact assessments and two fire safety and evacuation reviews on the site.
US President Donald Trump said "it’s up to" Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be "very unhappy" with a change in the "status quo," the New York Times said in an interview published yesterday. Xi "considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. "But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that," he added. "I hope he doesn’t do that." Trump made the comments in
Tourism in Kenting fell to a historic low for the second consecutive year last year, impacting hotels and other local businesses that rely on a steady stream of domestic tourists, the latest data showed. A total of 2.139 million tourists visited Kenting last year, down slightly from 2.14 million in 2024, the data showed. The number of tourists who visited the national park on the Hengchun Peninsula peaked in 2015 at 8.37 million people. That number has been below 2.2 million for two years, although there was a spike in October last year due to multiple long weekends. The occupancy rate for hotels
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
A cold surge advisory was today issued for 18 cities and counties across Taiwan, with temperatures of below 10°C forecast during the day and into tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. New Taipei City, Taipei, Taoyuan and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties are expected to experience sustained temperatures of 10°C or lower, the CWA said. Temperatures are likely to temporarily drop below 10°C in most other areas, except Taitung, Pingtung, Penghu and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, CWA data showed. The cold weather is being caused by a strong continental cold air mass, combined with radiative cooling, a process in which heat escapes from
RSS