The procedure for rendering services involving organization of events and management of the International Convention Center and the „Spodek” sports and exhibition hall in Katowice will be entered into the final phase next month. First events will be held in the new venue in March 2015.
The announcement of the concession took place in July last year. In November, five business entities entered their preliminary applications. „Recently, we have finished the second round of negotiations with four bidders. Now we prepare to invite them to submit final applications for concluding the concession agreement. The invitation will be made in June. Then we need time to evaluate the fulfilment of criteria of the bidders applications. We hope to sign the contract with the winning operator in the third quarter of 2014” – said Janusz Nowak, project manager of the ICC.
There are four criteria to be considered by the City Hall when evaluating the applications: amount of expenditures incurred by the concessioner for the ICC, time of performing the concession, amount of forecast payments made by the concessioner for the benefit of the City Hall and number of days when the City of Katowice may use the ICC free of charge.
The City Hall is going to invite four companies to file the final applications. There are: SMG Polska, HKO, Global Retail and Residential Estate Service and PTWP Event Center (a susidiary of PTWP Group). The fifth bidder – Krzysztof Pietrzko – has been excluded from the procedure for lack of documentation which had to be submitted prior to the deadline.
Within the scope of executing the object of the concession, the City Hall of Katowice will expect following commitments from the favourable company: organization of events and commercial management of the center, technical management of the ICC as well as managing the accounting and reporting of the ICC and „Spodek”.
The total area of the ICC’s no-column multi-functional hall is 8 147 sq. meters, capable of accommodating around 8 000 persons for conferences and 10 000 attendees for concerts, banquet hall for 1 000 persons, banquet hall foyer for 300 persons, auditorium for 600 persons, conference rooms for 1 200 persons and exhibitor offices for 100 persons, with the total space being 37 900 sq. meters. The multifunctional character of the infrastructure will enable the operator to organize any event, including sports events with audience, for example tennis, boxing, volleyball and horse riding.
The construction work on the center is expected to be finished in December 2014. The great opening would take place a few months later when the commissioning process is concluded. „The first events, for example trade fairs or university’s career days, are planned to be held in the ICC in March 2015. The initial booking schedule includes inquiries for the organization of events up to the year 2019” – Janusz Nowak added.
Additionally, during the 6th European Economic Congress, the Katowice mayor Piotr Uszok voiced the opinion, that the seventh edition of the event will take place in the International Convention Center.