The Frankfurt Opera House Story

Living in the shadow of Frankfurt, I tend to follow local news a good bit.

This morning, it popped up that the city authorities are going back to the table and admitting that this idea of renovating or rebuilding the city opera house....won't work for the 900 million Euro (roughly a billion dollars) as from the estimate given back in the summer.

I suspect that the amount shocked them to a great extent and they were likely thinking in the 200-million Euro range instead, when the talks first started.

Renovating the old opera house on Willy-Brandt-Platz?  I doubt if that was plan 'A' on their list.  They wanted a more modern and 'huge' building (like the Hamburg opera house).

So now?  The city has a team working on new options, and new estimates.  Basically, if you use the Hamburg gimmick....you go and convince everyone that you can do X and Y on renovation for a reasonable sum of 250-million Euro (it'll be some nice round number which ought to immediately attract your attention as to how it could be so round).  Then you step into the first phase and find that various parts of the plan won't work and wasting millions to discover that faulty planning stage.

Then you start to add bits and pieces....along the way of discovering more issues, and finally arriving at the 50-percent stage where the cost factor has launched into the 700-million Euro range.  By the end, you will have met the 900-million Euro range with everything added up. 

Folks get angry and upset because they know they were lied to.  The other problem to this discussion is that you suddenly grasp that 95-percent of the city population would never utilize the opera house in their life.  You also come to ask questions over revenue gained from events at the opera house, and if they'd ever pay for yearly maintenance and staff support (most of these in Germany require yearly money from the city council to survive). 

A likely topic over the next decade in Frankfurt?  Yes.  A negative topic.  But it's best to have a scandal like this rather than some sex scandal.