Extension given for partial demolition of Athens hotel

The Council of State is giving state agencies a six-month extension regarding the demolition of the top two floors of the Coco-Mat hotel in the Makrigiannis area of Athens which have been declared illegal. The extension was granted to allow sufficient time to prepare a tender for the study necessary for the demolition of the two top floors of the 12-story hotel.

The refusal of the owner company to undertake the process on its own has placed an unusual burden on the state agencies, which apparently have no experience of the "surgical" intervention required for partial demolition of a building.

The court said in its decision that "the specific object of demolition is not a building connected to the ground, but the top floors of an existing building, so it is possible that the statics of the building's legal part may be altered, since the structural study was carried out...