The bill keeps going up. After a first update of the cost of the rehabilitation of the Théâtre de l’Olivier and the development of its surroundings on June 20, here is a second. This Wednesday, December 18, during the river session (103 deliberations) of the last municipal council of the year, the elected officials of the City of Istres voted for a new modification of the budget allocated to the operation. Initially 20.4 million euros, the estimated cost of the work now stands at 40.66 million euros.
The reason for this increase: the addition of technical premises of 300 m2 and additional premises of 311 m2certain technical constraints linked to the foundations of the building and the decontamination of the soil, the need to reinforce the neighboring facades of the demolished building, an adaptation to the needs of users for the stage part and the indexation of the observed prices of equipment and materials due of the current economic situation.
No additional cost for
the Istreans
Opposition councilor Robin Pretot notes that ” if you have envelopes of 20 to 40 million euros to inject, I think that a more global rehabilitation of the city center in terms of its urban developments was perhaps a higher priority, but these are political choices. çThis does not mean that the choice of theater is not relevant. We support having a national stage and the next theater will have the criteria to match that. On the other hand, the cost is truly incredible. He went from singles to doubles. Since 2008, there has not been an investment project larger than this one in financial terms, it’s colossal, it deserves explanations “. They will come from the mayor (DVG) François Bernardini. According to him, “ at the time we launch an operation, we cannot have full knowledge of the operations that will come into play. The initial value was underestimated because at the time, for example, we did not know that excavations were necessary and that ‘they would cost us 600 000 euros more. We can say that it is expensive, but it will not cost the Istreans an extra penny since the Metropolis is financing the project. »
As for the priority aspect or not of this reconstruction, the first deputy delegate for culture, Nicole Joulia, assures us: “ It was urgent if we wanted to maintain influence within Scènes et Cinés itself, because we could no longer accommodate a certain number of performances which attract spectators. »
