The contract for the renovation the Hôtel-Dieu was given to Novaxia’s “philanthropist” Joachim Azan. The group specializes in “transitory urbanism”.
This mega-operation was imagined in 2016 by the director of historical monuments Philippe Bélaval and architect Dominique Perrault – at the request of President François Hollande and the Socialist Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo.
It plans to take advantage of the renovation of the Tribunal de Paris, the Prefecture of Police and Hôtel-Dieu, in order to enhance the tourist potential of the Notre-Dame Cathedral and the Sainte-Chapelle.
The cathedral fire constituted a “divine intervention” for the public authorities who will thus be able to commercially exploit the whole island by means of this new project. Notably, the public tendering process had started before the Notre-Dame Cathedral fire.
As the Minister of the Interior, Christophe Castaner pointed out, Notre-Dame de Paris is “our common good” and not a cathedral.
Rented for 144 million euros for 80 years, part of the Hotel-Dieu complex will be transformed into housing, luxury shops and a gourmet restaurant for tourists. Hospital unions and medical staff, faced with the cuts to Parisian emergency services, have been protesting against this development.
The renovation has now been fast-tracked, and an ad hoc law was voted in first reading by the National Assembly to manage the collection of donations for the restoration of the cathedral. It provides incidentally that the Government will be authorized, by government order, to make any and all derogations.
These include: “To the rules concerning town planning, environment, construction and heritage preservation, in particular with regard to the compliance of planning documents, the issuance of works and construction authorizations, modalities of public participation in decision-making and environmental assessment, as well as preventive archeology;
“Rules relating to public commissions, public lands, roads and transport.”
The real estate project provides, for its part, the construction of a network of tunnels that will allow tourists to access the crypt of Notre Dame, in order to address traffic congestion on the island.
The ultimate goal is to transform the island from an administrative city into one of the busiest tourist areas in Europe.