Initiative to declare FIS a national heritage site halted 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 practicing sports, organizing sports competitions, and maintaining sports facilities, but the management of this institution came up with the idea to expand its activities to better serve sports and athletes, reports 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 problems due to funding, and given that sports are their primary activity, they came up with the idea to expand their activities into hospitality and tourism.

- 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. Since we have researched the market and 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, not aiming for profit.

- 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 again be a supplementary activity to the hostel, and we have a conceptual design for underground garages within the FIS courtyard, where we would not disrupt sports activities, as we would build an artificial turf field on the top floor of the garages – explains Polić.

A project worthy of attention was halted, although all preparatory work was completed and a credit line from the bank was 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 heritage site.

- This, in one part of that letter and law, obliged us to suspend all activities, including those we had started regarding the hostel. We sent a letter as an urgent procedure and explained what we plan to do. We are not altering the external dimensions of the building, meaning we only plan to install an elevator, which is necessary because the FIS building cannot be used by people with disabilities, 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 that letter and have received no response so far, and we are somewhat on hold. So, we don't know if we will manage to realize such a facility this year – states 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 numerous initiatives to solve the FIS problem, 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 had 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.