MP and councilor of the Democrats in Bar, Momčilo Leković, says that the Ministry of Spatial Planning, Urbanism and State Property confirmed his information in response that the construction site of the "Liko Soho" hotel is closed and that no construction work is currently being carried out at that location.
"This ministry has no knowledge of why work on the facility is not being carried out, given that the construction of the facility has not been stopped by this ministry's inspection, and thus there is no legal or other obstacle to the implementation of the project," the ministry's response, which Leković submitted to the media, states.
Leković says he was not surprised by the information about the delay.
"The expected completion of the hotel construction is August 1, 2026, with the plan for the hotel to welcome its first guests in the first quarter of the same year. Unfortunately, the information about the delay is not a surprise to me. We have been following the sale of this attractive plot of land since the very beginning, that is, since 2018 and the attempt of the then Government to sell the attractive land for next to nothing (92 euros per m²). Despite our great opposition, the Government of Duško Marković managed to sell almost 2019 thousand square meters of state land in 30 at a price of only 132 euros per square meter to a consortium that was the only one to submit an offer. The consortium consisted of domestic, controversial investors close to the then regime, who were accompanied by scandals and failed projects, as well as a foreign investor whose intentions to build a truly representative facility on this site, I must admit, I had no doubts about," he said.
"My assessment at the time was that instead of the minimum 10 million euros, valuable state property covering an area of 27.972 square meters in the city center, 100 meters from the sea, was sold for only 3.692.304 euros, of which the Municipality of Bar received a little more than a million, causing multi-million-dollar damage to both the Municipality and the state of Montenegro. My assessment was also that the domestic investor would try to use the construction of a 5-star hotel, which initially implies exemption from the utility fee, to change the business model during construction, according to a well-established scheme, by which a large or largest part of this facility would be converted into residential units that would later be sold, while the hotel would remain only as decoration," adds Leković.
That attempt, he said, took place in 2022, when investors asked the Government of Dritan Abazović to issue consent, that is, to allow them to change the model and build the hotel according to a mixed business model.
"The investor had planned to sell all 322 accommodation units, and the average price per accommodation unit was 521.000 euros. And then we raised our voices, but what specifically happened after that remains unknown. However, I believe that the worst epilogue is this epilogue. The uncertainty of whether and when the project will continue, or whether Bar will continue to sovereignly maintain the status of the city with the most failed projects that failed in exactly the same way? I believe that there is definitely work for the prosecutor's office here, and there was much earlier, when the land itself was sold," the statement reads.
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