Invitalia is a public company that has undergone a profound transformation in recent years. Whereas before, he dealt with a bit of everything, from investment promotion to the management of shareholdings in companies in sectors considered strategic, from the procedures for the disbursement of state incentives to some bailouts for companies in difficulty. Now, however, it has been completely cleared of all the assets that had piled up in its portfolio in order to focus on the rehabilitation and enhancement of abandoned land areas, on the management of incentives on behalf of the Ministry of Development, and, through Brother, on the installation of broadband in peripheral areas of the country, where presumably there would be no direct commitment from private individuals.
The creator of this profound change in Invitalia's mission was Dominic Arcuri, managing director of the company, who competently fulfilling a technical role, has enjoyed the support of governments of all stripes that have come and gone over the past nine years.
Now Arcuri has been called upon to face a truly demanding challenge, that of rehabilitation and the search for an economically viable destination for the immense abandoned area of Bagnoli by Italsider over a quarter of a century ago, and on which up to now only crazy screw-ups have cost the taxpayer 300 million Euros, without any appreciable results.
It is a challenging project not only technically, but also from a political-institutional point of view given the jealousies, in particular of the Municipality of Naples whose mayor contests the government's decision to take over the entire project. Arcuri is well aware of the difficulties, but he also knows that it is one of the largest territorial redevelopment projects in Europe and that its success on schedule would represent not only a great success for Invitalia, but an emblematic case of the rebirth of the South and of all of Italy.
“In a few days – Arcuri tells us – we will be issuing tenders for the first phase, that of the characterization of the area, that is, the mapping of the environmental remediation needs. By November we should be able to have a complete picture of the situation and therefore we will be able to start with the actual reclamation. At the same time we will eliminate the reclamation into the sea, i.e. the discharges that the iron and steel center had accumulated in the sea, and we will quickly clean up the northern beach to make it usable, even if it will not yet be suitable for swimming".
But in the past years, hadn't reclamations already been made by the company set up by the local authorities, i.e. future Bagnoli?
“Something has been done – replies Arcuri – but not well and probably fraudulently, so much so that an investigation is underway by the Judiciary which, moreover, has seized part of the land on which we will now have to work. And in the end Bagnoli Futura even went bankrupt, so much so that we took over the ownership of the land. Now, after the agreement signed a few days ago with the procurement supervisory authority presided over by the Canton judge, on the model of what was done for the Expo, we should quickly open a new page”.
But what does the plan to resettle activities in the area once it has been cleaned up?
“Our idea is to leave half of the area as a park, to do nothing for residential building, but to use the available spaces for tourism, research activities, as well as the reuse of the five existing industrial archeology sites. In addition, it is necessary to put into operation the three structures built in the recent past but never open to the public and therefore now horrendously vandalised, namely the Sports Park, the Congress Center and the Thermal Centre".
That is, public money has been spent on these three structures without ever being able to test them and therefore be able to use them?
"Exact. In addition, 180 million have been obtained from Europe for these projects which now, if we don't put them into operation quickly, we will also have to give back to Brussels. Then there is the Città della Scienza which instead had opened but suffered a serious fire a couple of years ago. Now we are thinking of rebuilding it perhaps with some improvements compared to the original”.
Then there is the possibility of making a marina.
"Yes, under the island of Nisida, a wonderful port structure can be built with relative tourist facilities and we also envisage the construction of a couple of hotels that will allow the enhancement of the area which is rich in history and natural beauty".
But it's not finished. We also need to think about the connection infrastructures since people must be able to get there in Bagnoli. To get to do these things, a variant of the urban plan will also be necessary and therefore the Municipality enters the field which, on the other hand, if Luigi De Magistris is confirmed as mayor, is very opposed to this way of proceeding. Finally, it must be clarified who will have to pay for all these works.
“As far as the connection infrastructures are concerned, we are already working on the projects for a road, for the extension of the metro, and if possible for a cable car (once there was) that goes up to Posillipo. With the Municipality of Naples we will see what relations there will be after the elections. But I am confident that rationality and common sense prevail. Finally, it is clear that the cost of the reclamation activities will have to be covered by the State, which has paid the first 50 million to start the whole process. For the reuse of archaeological sites, for the port, for the hotels, it will be necessary to attract private investors who will finance the construction and then take care of the management".
Considering the complexity of the project and the multiplicity of relationships with public institutions and private individuals, it is clear how Bagnoli can mark a turning point for the entire South. But Invitalia is starting on a second major project, that of broadband. At what stage is the process to get to start the work?
“The money is both European and Italian – replies Arcuri -. In June we will start issuing the first calls for tenders for the laying of the fiber in areas C and D, those where private individuals do not have the convenience of investing directly, but who are obviously interested in using the infrastructure once they have done so. Our Infratel is already working and will soon start this new massive phase of investments which is worth around 4 billion. It would be good if the whole sector moved in harmony to provide Italy with an infrastructure essential to the new phase of technological advancement of companies, and also to revitalize the entire supplier sector which in recent years has suffered from the slowdown in investments which still could have development opportunities”.
In short, it would be rational to have a single grid manager as is the case for Terna or Snam. But this is a topic that goes beyond Arcuri's competence. Instead, we come to the third sector of Invitalia's activity, the one concerning business incentives.
“Also in this sector, in agreement with the Government and Parliament, we have made significant innovations. Our business of participating in the capital of Start Ups is successful and does not run the risk of being overwhelmed by patronage requests because the law establishes as a condition for our intervention that there is another investor who is convinced to share the investment risk with us. Then we strengthened the "development contracts" which now apply to the whole country, including foreign companies and tourism. They are therefore also a fundamental element for our activity to valorise brownfield sites. It is interesting to underline, also to have a signal on the trend of the overall economic situation, that last year we stipulated contracts for one billion Euros against requests for 2 billion. In the first five months of this year alone we had requests for 5 billion. In short, something has also got back into motion on the private investment front.”
