The largest industrial factory of its time in Bulgaria opened its doors 111 year ago. Close to the Sofia-Kyustendil railway line, it was owned by the Bulgarian Sugar Factories and Refineries companies with Belgium giant Solvay as its main shareholder.

Today, the sugar factory, as it became known in Sofia, still stands next to the railroad but it no longer produces sugar or anything else, for that matter. The building, which was once workplace to 1200 people, is now empty and on the way to becoming a pile of bricks, although, strictly speaking, it has been officially declared a monument of culture, a status supposed to save it from destruction. 

A group of architects, who write on the whata.org blog, have made it their business to save the sugar factory. They say it can be converted into a block of luxury residential apartments or even into a museum of contemporary art.

Architect Ivailo Zahariev, who decided to seek the help of prominent institutions to save the building, agrees, but unfortunately his efforts so far have been in vain.  

Letters with no answer
The former sugar factory building is a nationally renowned monument of culture. Its value stems from  the scarcity of industrial buildings in Bulgaria, according to architect Galya Stoyanova from the National Institute for Monuments of Culture (NIMC).

The building is currently owned by flour producer Sofia Mel. According to Vanya Zegova, chief architect of Ilinden borough, the site of the derelict building, the company has been negligent in its care of the property. 

The problem became widely publicised at the beginning of the year, when the Ministry of Culture received a tip-off that the building faced destruction. So the city hall and NIMC investigated and concluded that the building’s eastern section could not be salvaged and posed a danger to passers-by. The roof had started to cave in and the metal support columns eroded, the committee also concluded. After the check, interim district mayor Zhelyako Pishmanov ordered the building’s owner to provide security by ring-fencing it and instigating repairs within a month.

Six months later, the order has not been heeded because the building’s owner decided to appeal against it in court. The same scenario was repeated on two further occasions until – earlier this month – the local administration received a letter from Sofia Mel saying that it had sold the building. "The letter did not say to whom, and where he or she could be found, so now we don’t know whom to address about the issue and demand measures," Zegova said. 

Sofia city hall has also been informed of the problem. By law, it could mortgage the building, repair it with its own money and re-claim the cost from the building’s owner. "Unfortunately, we lack the funds. If we want to repair the building we would have to stop repair works and construction on kindergartens, for example," said architect Vladi Kalinov, head of the city hall’s construction control directorate.

He believes that responsibility for the preservation of such buildings should reside with the Culture Ministry. On the whole, Kalinov agrees that the sugar factory should be turned into a luxury apartment complex.

Both the city hall and the NIMC said they will maintain efforts to save the building. "The fact that the building has a new owner should not serve as an excuse," Kalinov said.

"There are still ways for the building to be consolidated and preserved despite its grave condition," Stoyanova said.