Following corruption allegations, Skopje Mayor Petre Silegov ordered the destruction of the half-built cafe on top of the GTC shopping mall in downtown Skopje.
Silegov’s town hall described the decision as driven by comments from citizens, critical about the style and purpose of the object, which is being built at what is supposed to be a green roof.
Following public comments, we decided to stop the work temporarily and after subsequent consultations with the associations of architects and the I Love GTC association, the city of Skopje decided to dismantle the building and to plant the space with floral arrangements, said the Skopje town hall.
The opposition VMRO-DPMNE party accused Silegov of angling to give the potentially lucrative cafe to a businessman close to his SDSM party. The GTC mall was bitterly contested during the Colored Revolution starting in 2015, with SDSM denouncing a plan to turn it into a modern closed space, air-conditioned mall, with a neoclassical facade replacing its current brutalist style. SDSM staged a referendum and “hugging” protests to preserve GTC, and that is why the plan to build a cafe on top of it riled many of its supporters.
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