As Novac/Dora Koretic writes on the 6th of August, 2019, judging by the documentation published in the Official Gazette, the reconstruction of the Plitvice Hotel located inside the much loved national park, an architectural building originally designed by Marijan Haberle (Croatian architect), will be carried out by the 3LHD architectural studio or the Arta Design (Projektiranja) firm from Zagreb.

Namely, the two companies were the only ones to submit a binding tender in the design documentation tender for the reconstruction of this now-neglected and dilapidated concrete ''specimen'' of post-war domestic modernist architecture, in which Plitvice National Park, according to the earlier announcement of director Tomislav Kovačević, plans to invest 100 million kuna and convert it to a boutique hotel.

As can be seen from the tender's details, a cheaper offer of 5.6 million kuna was submitted by 3LHD, while Arta Design's offer was 25,000 kuna more expensive. It remains to be seen whose conceptual solution for the renovation of the Plitvice Hotel will impress the management and the park experts the most.

Either way, both companies have a very good reference list when it comes to designing hotels.

Namely, Studio 3LHD is the company behind some of the most impressive Croatian hotels, such as Maistra's Lone Hotel and the latest investment by Hotel Park. On top of all that, there is also 3LHD's "foreign" business which is done over in China, where the Zagreb-based studio completed the LN Garden project in August last year, complete with 365 rooms in the popular Chinese city of Guangzhou.

Arta design, on the other hand, is behind the investments made by the Alhambra and Villa Augusta hotels in Lošinj, where Arta also worked on interior design, they also dealt with the interior design done in the well-known Lošinj Hotel Bellevue.

"It's correct that two bids have now arrived, and now it will take about a month to decide, so I think sometime in September we'll know who the author of the hotel's renovation will be. After that, we'll still have a lot of work to do, it will be followed by the announcement of another type of tender, so I don't thinks that the works will actually begin before winter next year, "said Plitvice National Park's director Tomislav Kovačević, adding that he hoped that the newly renovated hotel would open its doors to its first guests in 2021.

It's worth mentioning the fact that is the first major renovation of the park-owned hotel facilities in the last twenty years. This now unimpressive building was built in 1958 as the first Yugoslav A-category hotel. Over the years, unfortunately the hotel has been ''left to its own devices'' and been neglected quite a bit, as is evidenced by the fact that its official category is now at a mere two stars, which is why NP Plitvice's park management decided to restore it back to its old glory.

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