The Coimbra Viva fund, majority owned by the Municipality of Coimbra, intends to proceed in 2027 with the rehabilitation of a set of ten parcels on Rua Direita, in the Baixa of the city, in an estimated investment of 2.8 million euros. The fund's manager, Susana Tavares, told the Portuguese news agency that the architectural project is already approved and that the fund expects to submit the specialty projects still this year, with the aim of obtaining the construction permit by the end of the first quarter of 2027.
The intervention covers six buildings on Rua Direita and foresees the creation of eight dwellings, between T1 and T3, and a space intended for services or restaurants. The work will have a complex execution due to the difficulties of access and installation of the construction site, the need for facade preservation and the archaeological work required in an intervention in the historic center, near Praça 8 de Maio.
The fund also has in preparation an intervention on Rua João Cabreira, next to Via Central, with an estimated construction cost of about 2.6 million euros, which foresees three commercial spaces and 11 residential units, also planned for 2027. This project has suffered delays due to the need to expand the archaeological work.
To finance these two interventions, Coimbra Viva intends to resort to IFRRU 2030, maintaining bank financing as an alternative. Susana Tavares lamented the lack of positive differentiation in that instrument for rehabilitation projects in historic centers. The planned dwellings will not be made available at controlled costs, with the fund seeking to ensure the economic viability of the investments. Created in 2011 to intervene in a delimited area of the Baixa of Coimbra, the fund has as institutional participants the City Council and the Institute for Housing and Urban Rehabilitation, being managed by the private company FundBox.
