Initiative to declare FIS a national monument halts hostel construction project

The Public Institution "Center for Sports and Recreation" has a long tradition and experience in providing services in the field of sports, creating conditions for sports activities, organizing sports competitions, and maintaining sports facilities, but the management of this institution has come up with the idea to expand its activities in order to provide better logistics for sports and athletes, writes the Patria news agency.

As Jasmina Polić, director of the Center for Sports and Recreation, told Patria, considering the overall situation in society and seeing that sports will continue to face financial problems, and given that sports are their primary activity, they came up with the idea to expand into the hotel and tourism industry.

- We already have existing capacities in the FIS building, about 500 square meters in the attic space, which has been completely unused since FIS was built, and we planned to build a hostel there, primarily for sports services again. Given that we have researched the market and that it is a profitable sector, we have the logistics within the center and do not require too much financial investment in terms of employees – says Polić.

Jasmina Polić

Money earned from the hostel would be returned to sports, as the Center was founded as a public institution and operates on a cost basis, and profit is not their goal.

- Our goal is to be good logistics for sports. In addition to the hostel, in a later phase, we plan to open a travel agency, which would also be an addition to the hostel's activities, and we have a conceptual project for underground garages within the FIS courtyard, which would not disrupt sports activities, as we would build an artificial turf field on the top floor of the garage – explains Polić.

A project worthy of attention has been halted, although all preparatory work has been completed and a credit line from the bank has been approved, but then the Center experienced a surprise, as about 20 days ago they received an initiative from the BiH level to declare FIS a national monument.

- This, in one part of that letter and law, obliged us to suspend all activities, including those we had started regarding the hostel. We have sent a letter in urgent procedure and explained what we plan to do. We are not altering the external dimensions of the building, so we only plan to install an elevator, which is necessary because people with disabilities cannot use the FIS building, and we need a fire escape, which is missing from the FIS building and which, due to the Fire Protection Law, must be installed. We stated all this in the letter and so far we have no response, and we are somewhat on hold. So we don't know if we will manage to realize such a facility this year – emphasizes Polić.

The initiative came from the Commission for National Monuments, but no one took into account that the Center itself had repaired the damage to the FIS building.

- I have been here long enough to say this. The FIS building suffered significant damage during the war, and it was patched up without a systematic approach to solving the problem. For many years, I heard people reminiscing about FIS and how nice it was. And all those people are now in positions, but no one, despite our many initiatives to solve the problem of FIS, has helped. In the end, we took out a loan and did what had to be done, from the roof structure, which was completely destroyed, to the facade, which has never been renovated since FIS was built. So, we did what, in a way, should have been done much earlier if it was intended to be a cultural monument – stated Polić.