The former isotta of Saronno: the redevelopment ready, a stop in common. The owner: « I would like to give something to the city »

From factory source of income for thousands of saronno families to the monument of industrial archeology left for decades to himself that could rise again to new life on the basis of an ambitious project: donating the city green, public spaces, also with a cultural vocation as well as residential and affiliated construction. A rebirth plan, that of the 150 thousand square meters of theFormer Isolde Fraschini, which is however blocked in common one step by the operational phase Due to an « integrated intervention plan » presented by the property in July 2024 and never approved by the municipal administration, meanwhile lapsed (it will be voted in May, the Municipality is a police station).

To report the impasse, and to launch an appeal to those who are preparing to govern the city, is Giuseppe Gorla, 66 years old, sole director of « Saronno-Città of common goods », a company that has purchased the entire area with the glorious industrial past after several judicial auctions (the engines of the « Caproni » planes were also built here of the « Trans Europe Express » trains and competition motorboats) and for years in full degradation. « It is a strategic project for Saronno, but not only », explains the engineer Gorla, for 32 years in apical roles in the multinational Accenture (he is among the founding shareholders), now retired and that he decided to invest, in 2019, a conspicuous part of his assets in the purchase of the area. «Several times I wondered what I could do for the city where I live and so I thought of a civil responsibility project. The idea is to restore what I received from life: from this operation I could be lucky if I managed to recover the invested capital, not much more, because I am not a real estateist ».

Gorla has never publicly talked about in the press of this redevelopment project and decided to do it with the courier. The area provides, among other buildings, Four new residential towers, one of cooperative building and a management for offices, 25 thousand square meters to be allocated to the area of ​​ »Higher Education » university as well as a new international hub of the « UAE Team Emirates »the cycling team where the champion Tadej Pogacar runs. In the project, the architect Cino Zucchi and the urban planner Giancarlo Consonni and on the plane of the works were involved, having as far as the practice to build will be unlocked, remediation were started in 2022: Almost 70% of the ground was completely regenerated by the handling of about 110 thousand cubic meters of earth, more than 40 thousand of rubble was examined and recovered, and activated a replanting for over 60 thousand square meters to be allocated to public park. «The project looks to the future, to give an opportunity to many young people who often go abroad to work or study, but also to the recovery of the memory of what the area, disused since 1990, represented for those who worked here. Those who prepare to administer the city must take into account it », concludes Giuseppe Gorla.

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