The Taipei City Government yesterday said that construction on the long-suspended Taipei Dome can resume immediately, after it approved a request by the project’s main contractor, Farglory Group.
In a statement, the Taipei Construction Management Office said that after it on July 16 issued a new building permit, Farglory submitted revised design plans and an application to resume construction, which the office approved on Friday.
Construction had been suspended on the dome, near the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Xinyi District (信義), for more than five years due to disagreements between the city and the company over the safety of some of its features.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
However, Farglory later agreed to rebuild parts of the dome that were not constructed according to plans, reduce the venue’s overall capacity and increase fire safety and evacuation facilities, the office said.
While the office is allowing construction to resume, it also called attention to its ongoing disagreements with the contractor.
It said that Farglory must add safety and fireproofing features to several of the dome’s stairwells to receive a usage permit, citing Article 97 of the Building Technical Regulations (建築技術規則).
In addition, if Farglory wants the facility to be used to host concerts and other large-scale gatherings, it needs to pass a performance-based design review by the Taiwan Architecture and Building Center, the office said.
It added that it had fined Farglory and ordered it to remove cotton sound insulation, which the contractor had installed at the building site without permission.
Although Farglory has filed an appeal, the office has said it was within its rights under the Administrative Appeals Act (行政訴訟法) to issue fines and would continue to do so until the contractor removed the insulation.
The statement also said that Farglory had appointed a new supervising architect, but said the developer must still obtain the city’s authorization to appoint a new design architect.
The Taipei Dome project has been at a standstill since May 20, 2015, when the city ordered Farglory to halt construction over safety concerns, and the discovery of 79 building features that were not constructed according to design specifications.
At the time, Farglory had already completed 80 percent of the work needed to finish the multipurpose stadium.
In the intervening years, there have been multiple lawsuits between the contractor and the city over the resumption of construction.
During that time, the city government has also conducted seven urban design reviews, two environmental impact assessments and two fire safety and evacuation reviews on the site.
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