Piazza Statuto Redevelopment: Green Spaces, Parking, and Exhibition Plans
The project redesigning Piazza Statuto, created by architect Lucio Donatini, aimed primarily to free the area beneath the municipality from cars and to enhance the square with large green spaces and public use volumes. In agreement with the Soprintendenza, the administration set aside the idea of drastically altering the configuration of the square and the votive altar, a work by Ettore Fagiuoli inaugurated in September 1926.
The goal of removing cars from Piazza Statuto was achieved by creating multiple underground levels of parking garages capable of increasing the current parking capacity. “We will provide 300 additional parking spaces plus 38 garages for storage,” explains Mayor Giuseppe Lombardi.
Structure and traffic modifications
The underground structure consists of four levels with spiral ramp entrances located behind the municipal building, where vehicles arrive after entering corso Garibaldi. The southwest part of Piazza Statuto, currently occupied by the street, will be redesigned with widened sidewalks, the creation of the missing pedestrian crossing, and the planting of trees.
This redesign extends to the square of the staircases on via Parrocchia, where a small square set in an amphitheater style, with a central fountain and circular tree planting, will be developed. The current one-way traffic pattern will be maintained and extended to nearly all of corso Garibaldi, which will only have uphill transit in the last section.
Vehicle exits will be through a new rear ramp that will lead near the roundabout on Gardesana. The area in front of the municipality, which today hosts a toll barrier for exiting vehicles and supermarket activities, will be reclaimed for pedestrian use and will become a second small square.
Restoration and new green areas
In the large square, which will be re-paved and restored, a light furnishing intervention will be carried out: three sets of steps for pedestrian resting spots. Particular attention has been paid to green space redevelopment, with the addition of two lemon houses near the retaining walls of via Parrocchia.
Potted olive trees and a new cork oak tree line along the sidewalks will be planted throughout Piazza Statuto and corso Garibaldi. The project also addresses the longstanding issue of disorderly bus parking next to Gardesana.
A ramp will descend from corso Garibaldi into the area behind the municipality, creating a temporary parking zone for tourist buses. Notably, two passage corridors through the municipal building will be established, freed from the supermarket.
Proposal for exhibition spaces and project management
The latest idea involves creating a large area, over three thousand square meters, mostly underground, designated as an exhibition space. The innovative proposal from the administration is to build a large freshwater aquarium.
This cutting-edge idea promises to attract significant tourism and serve scientific-educational purposes. The realization of Piazza Statuto and the traffic changes on corso Garibaldi, budgeted at 14 billion lira in 2001, will involve public and private partners, with a thirty-year management plan overseen by private entities.
