The Concert Hall is abandoned – costs still 18 million by 2017 – Sydsvenskan

When the music silent, it is time for the orchestra to pack up and move to Malmö Live. The city’s new concert hall that cost taxpayers almost 1.3 billion and also costs approximately 50 million kronor a year in rent.

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The old concert hall has an annual rent SEK 12 million. However, just because the symphony orchestra leaves the building does not mean that the rental cost for the municipality disappears.

The costs will be ticking on the one and a half years – a total of 18 million – when the lease expires.

original contract for the old concert hall really went out by 2018.

But since Malmo Live would be completed in the summer wanted the municipality does not sit with two concert halls for too many years.

Therefore renegotiated lease to the last in December 2016, instead.

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But the city of Malmö had to pay several million dollars for the compromise.

The property owner, Diligentia raised namely the annual rent with 2.5 million 12 million .

– We had a very poor negotiating position, said the Culture Administration’s local coordinator Earl Hoffman after the hearing.

Today, he says:

– In the best of worlds had been moved from the old concert hall the day it opened Malmo Live. But it’s hard to know several years in advance. How optimistic can not be.

Malmo Live.

Photo: Lars Brundin

When the symphony orchestra leaves at the end of May, the municipality has a tough task ahead of them. To fill an abandoned concert with the content of 1.5 years.

– We are working to resolve it now. It can be about getting into arrangements that do not fit on Malmo Live. A fairly large number of stakeholders have heard of him.

– The goal must be that we can do it, that revenues weighs up the costs. A zero-sum game, says Jarl Hoffman.

But the most cheapest solution is to do nothing at all. To just shut down the concert hall throughout the next year, paying rent 12 million and wait for the lease last day.

Elisabeth Lundgren.

Photo: Karl Melander

This is the view of Malmö’s cultural director Elisabeth Lundgren .

– We do not need to fill it with content. As soon as you should have a public operation, you must have the order of security, staff and stage technology. And that costs money. Then you have to produce events that draw crowds where admission revenues can cover the cost.

– In this way, the very cheapest to have it closed. Although it is not a good solution from Malmo residents perspectives to old concert house stands empty, she says.

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Autumn 2015 will it anyway little activity in the concert hall. Malmo Fire Brigade Orchestra , Tramway Band and Employment Service is scheduled.

– We take half a year at a time and see how it unfolds, says the cultural director.

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If the landlord finds another tenant before the end of the year 2016-2017, the City can be said up from the lease agreement.

Daniel Sestrajcic (V), currently member of parliament and former chairman of Malmö’s cultural committee, it is completely unreasonable that the municipality now pays for two concert halls.

– Sure, the old concert hall is not in top condition. But you could renovate it and had a rent of 15-16 million a year of taxpayers, instead of 50 million that is now being acquired in Malmö Live. Malmö Symphony Orchestra is already under-funded. One would have to give all this money to them instead, he said.