Despite thee being still some 30 weeks until the start of the elite 2011 IIHF World Championship there is already a lot of imagining going on concerning the eventual shape of the future Ondrej Nepela Arena in Bratislava. One of the two venues (the other being Košice) of next years 2011 IIHF World Championship is becoming more and more attractive day by day. It’s possible to say that the reconstruction of the building with a birth date of 1940 will result in a modern multi-purpose arena for the country’s capital – Bratislava. The results thus far of the invested sum in excess of 51 million Euros as presented directly from the arena building site itself at a meeting with journalists by Jarmila Tvrdá - director of Bratislava general Investor is more than encouraging.
“We have finished the steel and reinforced concrete construction. The interior and fasade of the arena are currently being worked on. The fasade of the main building will be glass, the training hall will be covered by sandwiched tin plastic. On the main surface individual construction elements have been added and the seats are set to be installed from Monday. I can state that the main hall is to be handed over as per the contract at the end of November” said Jarmila Tvrdá.
“When we say that the reconstruction of the arena is going according to schedule, we know exactly what we are talking about, we respect deadlines” Anton Bezák – director of INGSTEEL claims. He mentioned that the number of workers working on the building in any one day reaches up to 600! “There are hundreds of them even right now, for example; today we have 85 ironmongers – i.e. guys taking care of the iron framework for the panels. It’s these panels along with the windows that give the arena a modern look in which the fasade is fitted with eight steel stairwells.
The garages beneath the training hall and storage facilities to be used by the organisers as well as individual teams for equipment, drinks and fruit etc beneath the main rink are complete.
The view from the fourth floor of the concrete oval of the 9765 seater hall is impressive (note: - 7704 tickets will be on sale for the championship games) and the first few dozen dark blue seats have already been fitted.
Just to reiterate: arena reconstruction began on the 23rd of April last year. The costs were initially covered by the city, and have been covered by the state since the beginning of this year. According to information available the costs up until 22nd September have amounted to exactly 51 648 201.66 Euros, of which 21 150 035.51 has been covered by the state.
