Lisbon City Council has approved the signing of a concession contract with the Port of Lisbon Administration to install the Sea Hub at Pedrouços Dock, investing 26 million euros until 2098.
Lisbon City Council approved this Wednesday the signing of a concession contract with APL - Administração do Porto de Lisboa to install the Hub do Mar at Pedrouços Dock, investing 26 million euros until 2098.
In a private meeting, the proposal to submit the signing of a concession contract between APL and the municipality to the Lisbon Municipal Assembly was approved by the 17 members of the executive, with 12 votes in favour, including seven from the Novos Tempos coalition (PSD/CDS-PP/MPT/PPM/Aliança), which governs without an absolute majority, four from the PS and one from Livre.
There were also four abstentions, two from the PCP and two from Cidadãos Por Lisboa (elected by the PS/Livre coalition), and one vote against from the BE, a source from the mayor's office, Carlos Moedas (PSD), told Lusa.
Presented by the mayor and the councillor for Economy and Innovation, Diogo Moura (CDS-PP), the proposal seeks the private use of a plot of public land in Pedrouços for the installation of the Lisbon Sea Hub - Business Centre and Shared Ocean Lab “for a period of 75 years”, with the respective financial charges, for a total estimated value of 26,080,243.20 euros.
Of the 26 million euros of estimated expenditure over the 75-year period, 395 thousand euros are planned for this year, 35 thousand euros for 2024, 35 thousand euros for 2025, 107 thousand euros for 2026, 359 thousand euros for 2027 and 25.1 million euros between 2028 and 2098, according to the approved document.
The concession contract with APL foresees that the municipality of Lisbon invests “in the right of private use of a portion of the public (water) domain of the Portuguese State that is assigned to APL and integrated into its area of jurisdiction, with an area of 7,484.00 square metres, including the downstream vessel located next to Pedrouços Dock, for the installation of the Hub do Mar”.
“In return, the municipality is obliged to pay a private use fee of 4.00Euro/m2/month (four euros per square metre per month) on the concession area (7,484.00m2),” subject to annual updates, reads the proposal, noting that there are initial bonuses to the respective value, namely 95% in the period between the conclusion of the contract and the start of the work, 90% pending the work and 50% in the six months following the conclusion of the contract.
On 11 March 2022, a consortium agreement was signed between the municipality of Lisbon, Docapesca, Fórum Oceano, the Portuguese Institute of the Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA) and the University of Lisbon, with an application for funds from the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), requesting 31 million euros for the construction of the Hub do Mar.
Dubbed by Carlos Moedas as the Hub of Future Unicorns of the Sea, the project aims to be “an infrastructure capable of cementing and boosting a sustainable and circular blue economy, which contributes to strengthening a highly innovative and entrepreneurial ecosystem”.
The project also aims to promote “research and innovation activities, prototyping and testing, acting as an aggregating link, generating complementarities and synergies that boost the ideal conditions for the success of innovative solutions and new businesses”.
The Hub do Mar will be located in Doca de Pedrouços, in a space with a markedly industrial architectural character, linked to the blue economy, more specifically to the fisheries sector, and which, “being currently isolated from the city, has the ideal conditions for the creation of a new centrality, based on the urban regeneration of this area”.
When voting on this proposal, the BE councillors justified their vote against with the need for a structure for the defence and conservation of the sea rather than a Hub for the Unicorns of the Sea, considering that “the sea is not a resource to be exploited, but an ecosystem to be protected”.
The Hub do Mar project was part of the electoral programme of the Novos Tempos coalition (PSD/CDS-PP/MPT/PPM/Aliança) in the local elections of September 2021, in which Social Democrat Carlos Moedas defeated Socialist Fernanda Medina to become mayor of Lisbon.
News published based on the original article in ECO: https://eco.sapo.pt/2023/06/14/camara-de-lisboa-preve-investir-26-milhoes-durante-75-anos-numa-concessao-para-instalar-hub-do-mar/