Damage to historic building halts work on Taipei stadium

Taipei city government has ordered the suspension of work on the new baseball stadium because of damage to adjacent foundations and concerns about the MTR line. The city government in Taiwan’s capital said that a neighbouring historic building has been damaged by the work. The company building the Taipei Dome will have to submit detailed plans on improving safety before work is allowed to recommence.

The government ordered the project company, Farglory Dome, to suspend work last week on theTaipei Dome for violating Article 58 of the Building Act. Data from monitoring both the historical Songshan Tobacco Factory and the tunnel of neighbouring MRT line showed an exacerbation of issues since mid-February, it said.

During a meeting in March, the company had pointed out that halting works before the completion of the foundations would endanger public safety. The city government then dispatched a task force to inspect the ongoing works on the foundations and demanded that Farglory produce plans with clear methods regarding improvements and hasten the construction of foundation.

“Recent data acquired from the monitoring of the tobacco plant and the subway tunnel showed no signs of improvement, indicating Farglory Dome’s negligence of public safety and disregard for historical site preservation,” said the city government.

The city ordered Farglory Dome to submit plans for improvements and to propose its plans for repairing damages to the historical site by 18 May 18. However, the 7 documents submitted by Farglory Dome failed to provide concrete details on improvements, it said.

“The company’s reply regarding repairs to the tobacco factory also failed to address the issue on how to prevent future damages to the building,” said the city’s statement. “Furthermore, the company repeatedly used foundation construction as an excuse to apply for further extension of work period. The latest extension request, submitted on May 18, asked for the deadline to be extended from July to August 15.”