A public committee had launched a petition and a sign-up list against the reshaping of two of Sofia’s symbolic buildings – Grandhotel Bulgaria and Bulgaria Concert Hall – into a shopping mall, Sega daily reported on October 31.

The so-called Initiative Committee for the Preservation of Bulgaria’s Monuments of Culture, consisting of architects, historians and restoration experts had called upon Sofians to join the action for saving the unique building complex “Bulgaria”. They said the project to turn the two buildings in the very heart of the city into a mall was to violate a whole series of regulations for the protection of cultural monuments. An appeal for help had been sent to the president, the prime minister, the mayor of Sofia, to foreign embassies in Bulgaria, as well as to international institutions, Sega said. The committee was blaming InvestBulgaria Agency (IBA) that it has become an accomplice in what was seen as an act of vandalism.

IBA was condemned for the issuing of a First Class Investment Certificate to the project of the Grandhotel Bulgaria owner BT Development Services to demolish the currently existing “architectural masterpiece” and replace it by a new 10-storey building with stores, offices and residential spaces. The committee said the new building would be in a serious contradiction with the current look of Tsar Osvoboditel Bloulevard, where Grandhotel Bulgaria is situated.

The four-star Grandhotel Bulgaria is one of the oldest hotels in the centre of Sofia. In the past several months it had not been operating at full capacity and due to increasing competition from new hotels, the owners had decided to change the building’s purpose.