Bologna is changing, even if the Bolognese may not have noticed it yet. After years of floating, complaints, crossed vetoes, winding dissatisfactions and cardinal warnings, the sleeping beauty blinks again. With the era of the political laboratory closed and the trauma of the absence of a role overcome, Bologna, thanks to its patrons, but also thanks to an administration with antennas, is showing signs of a renaissance.
The last of these positive symptoms is called Fico, an acronym that stands for Fabbrica Italiana Contadina, and is an ambitious, innovative, national and international project, simple like all good ideas, which should see the light by June 2015. Yesterday was the first stone was laid with the signing of a letter of commitments from investors. The goal is to transform the current agri-food center into a Disneyland of food: 80 square meters available for stables, aquariums, fields, vegetable gardens, production workshops, laboratories, serviced counters, grocery stores, restaurants, shops and fields to show cultivation and the treatment of a product, its processing and possible cooking, from wheat to bread, from olive to oil, or according to one of the coined slogans, from pitchfork to fork.
An idea that can transform Bologna into the national capital of food, in homage to one of its historic names: "the fat one". Behind this project, which intends to become a reality in a year and a half to catch up with the Expo, are the Municipality, as well as Oscar Farinetti, patron of Eataly and Daniele Segrè, university professor, president of Caab, an agro-food center with 400 million in turnover, whose companies are ready to move elsewhere.
It is an idea with local strength, but also national and international since Italian food is appreciated in the world, but not adequately protected and valued. Just think, says Segrè, that "our country exports 32 billion of agri-food products, that is, paradoxically, only half of a country like Holland". You can do more and Bologna wants to try, bringing together for the first time under one roof the tastiest of the peninsula. On paper, the new structure will bring 6 million to 8 million visitors to the capital each year, a third of whom are foreigners, and will directly employ 1500 people and indirectly another 5000 with related industries.
Important stuff, which many like and remains indigestible to someone. The objections? It could turn into a fiasco; get stuck in a change of city council; die in a bureaucratic passage. Or worse: it will be yet another shopping centre, which will further damage the small traders or farmers in the area, another "category killer" which, for one job created, will destroy another six. However, it is difficult to think that small farmers could suffer competition from a structure as large as a theme park; merchants and artisans on the other hand have already embraced the initiative and Ascom and Cna are among the lenders, together, among others, with the city's banking foundations, Banca Imi, the coops (Lega, Confcooperative, Coop Adriatica), the Industrial Union, the Chamber of Commerce, to private entrepreneurs such as Facchinetti and Alberto Masotti.
For now, 34 million euros have been collected, but they will soon become 40 million on the basis of commitments already made. The City leases the facility and expects to pay the expenses, helping to revitalize the city. A joint effort, made on the basis of an industrial plan and a business plan developed by Caab with EY Transaction Advisory Services. The construction of Fico will instead be managed by a real estate fund with an endowment of between 95 million and 400 million euros.
The return on investment can be estimated on the basis of an influx of 6,6 million visitors since the first year of operation, but the figure could be seen rising by 30%, in a more optimistic scenario. A sea of people for Bologna, which will also have to provide targeted connections between the historic center and the city of food, located on the northern outskirts of the capital, close to the motorway exit. If it's a gamble, it would seem that it is worth the risk.
