ROME, Italy (CelebrityAccess) — The Italian capital of Rome is on its way to being the home of a brand new stadium after the city’s mayor Virginia Raggi signed off on plans of AS Roma’s Stadio della Roma.
The proposed 52,000-capacity stadium will cost an estimated €800 million to build and will be located in the southern part of Rome.
Construction for the project could begin as early as the end of 2019, according to the team.
“It is about time the city has the opportunity to see the results of all these discussions and all this investment,” AS Roma Vice President Baldissoni said in a press statement. “And that Roma can finally begin construction of the stadium.”
“All that remains now is to go through the few outstanding technical and administrative steps to complete the final approval. First of those will be the approval of the ‘urban variation’. We are continuing to work closely with the administration on that. Everything has been discussed, there are no contentious points still to be resolved. All that remains is to address a couple of technical issues, which will then allow a date to be set for the final vote on the variation,” Baldissoni added.
Plans for the new stadium were first unveiled by club president, billionaire US businessman James Pallotta in 2014. The plans were given preliminary approval in 2017 but ran into headwinds that delayed the project, including a raft of criminal charges leveled against nine individuals affiliated with the stadium.
Italian media reported that among those taken into custody in the 2018 arrests include Luca Parnasi, owner of Eurnova, a construction company which had been retained to build the stadium.
Also arrested in the sweep was Adriano Palozzi, a politician who oversees the Lazio region of Italy, regional councilor Michele Civita and Luca Lanzalone, the head of municipal electricity company ACEA, who worked with Raggi during the approval process.
