On the occasion of his wishes to the press, the mayor of Grenoble, Eric Piolle, spoke about the future of the two « wart » located on the hillside of the Bastille. “The Bastille will be our totem place throughout the year, he said. This site will start to transform this year. » In the line of sight, two university buildings built in the 60s that have not been operated since 2001 and 2011 respectively: the institute of Alpine geography and the institute of geology Dolomieu.
The latter, with an area of 5,800 m2, was auctioned in 2016 by the University of Grenoble Alpes. The developer Singer Construction became the buyer at a price of € 729,000 with the aim of creating a luxurious hotel residence there. “Nevertheless, the local urban planning plan did not authorize it”, recalls Eric Piolle. In 2019, the Marseille developer Axis, in conjunction with the Banque des territoires, bought the building. And, since December 2019, important works are underway to transform (and expand) the site into a residence “Babel Community”, for young active combining accommodation (137 rooms and apartments rented by the month), coworking workspace (800 m2), gym and a panoramic restaurant. Three other such residences exist in Marseille and Perpignan. The cost is estimated at €16 million. The delivery is expected by this summer after a month and a half delay due to the health crisis.
Mystery project in sight at the institute of Alpine geography
As for the institute of Alpine geography, with its 2,980 m2, it had been bought by the Haut-Savoyard developer, Daniel Besson in 2012 at a price of €1.13M, hoping to develop hotel apartments there. Ten years have passed and still no work has been started. “It doesn’t interest us that it stays in a developer’s land reserves for X years”, comments the mayor who suggests that a new project should be born soon, while keeping the mystery about the nature of the latter.
“Buying to spend millions on demolition, it was not possible for the City, concludes Eric Piolle, justifying the fact that the municipality did not acquire the two buildings. And buying to make a new public equipment either, because we already have, in Grenoble, an overdensity of public equipment. »
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