The so-called “Terme Blato” project was started back in 2008, and the ultimate plan was to build a large spa centre right next to the never-finished University Hospital building in Blato.
Public-Private Partnership aimed at building the spa centre very close to Zagreb city centre, in the neighbourhood of Blato seems to have arrived at an (un)expected total halt. The so-called “Terme Blato” project was started back in 2008, and the ultimate plan was to build a large spa centre right next to the never-finished University Hospital building in Blato. INA has been the major partner in this project, along with the city of Zagreb, and it was envisaged that a four-star hotel will be built on this location, that the entire complex would employ 700 people and have indoor and outdoor thermal swimming pools. It now appears that INA has completely given up on the exploitation of the geothermal water at this location, after having invested over 3 million kuna in the project thus far. As one of the key problems for this partnership the ownership of some of the lots where the buildings were supposed to be built is always mentioned, which resulted in City of Zagreb buying INA’s fraction in the business in 2014, when it was announced that the construction will start in two years, and that the geothermal water will be used to warm up the future production of vegetables in the area. None of that ever happened, literally, no work has been done to this day, and now the City has decided to liquidate the company which was supposed to handle this project. With that decision, they are still not giving up on the dream of having the spa centre at the location, and are continuing to announce that they are actually searching for new partners willing to finance the project, again in the mode of public-private partnership. They quote the study of feasibility of the spa, done in 2015 by Oberer Consulting, and claim that the City’s next step is to bring forward a zoning plan for Blato and try and get some funding from the EU, due to the fact that use of the geothermal water is considered low-carbon and is encouraged.
And, while the spa is still waiting, so is the hospital in the same neighbourhood. Its construction started in 1985, it was stopped during the years of the war, and it was never resumed, so it has been slowly falling apart for the past 25 years. Today it is estimated that it would cost additional 250 million Euro to finish the hospital building (because of its huge size and megalomaniacal original plans), and some ideas have been thrown around that the City of Zagreb and the Republic of Croatia could finish the building together. That model includes Klaićeva Children’s Hospital to be moved to the new building first, and several other Zagreb hospitals later, within 10 years (including the Sveti Duh hospital, where currently the construction of 20 million euro new wing is being performed).
So, for now, not much is happening at Blato (except for some minor works on maintaining the growth around the hospital building) on a very interesting and large piece of land close to the city centre, but there are plans so we just have to wait and see what will come of them!
