After failed procedures for the new Skënderbeu stadium, Korçë Municipality opens rehabilitation tender

The Korçë Municipality has now opened a tender for the rehabilitation of the existing stadium facilities, with a limit fund of 2,833,046 ALL excluding VAT.

While the reopening of the call for the construction of the new “Skënderbeu” Stadium by the Albanian Investment Corporation is expected following the failure of the previous procedures, the Korçë Municipality has now opened a tender for the rehabilitation of the existing stadium, with a limit fund of 2,833,046 ALL excluding VAT.

The procedure was opened today and will be financed from the Korçë Municipality’s own revenues. The works are expected to be completed within one month of signing the contract, while bids will be accepted until August 31.

The intervention is significantly more modest than the transformation originally planned for “Skënderbeu.” The bill of quantities includes maintenance and renovation works such as painting, replacement of doors, waterproofing, interventions on the roof and gutters, plasterboard walls, plastering and flooring, as well as plumbing, heating and electrical installations. The installation of seats with backrests for the stadium is also planned.

Tender documents show that of the allocated fund, around 1.77 million ALL is related to the renovation and maintenance of the facilities, around 758,000 ALL to technological and heating installations, and around 233,000 ALL to plumbing installations.

The tender is actually a re-announcement. The municipality states that a procedure with the same subject and the same limit fund, dated August 19, had been canceled and was reopened several days later. The abbreviated contract document does not provide the reason for the cancellation of the first procedure.

From an international project to repairs at the existing stadium.

The contrast is stark with what had been planned for Korçë. In January 2023, the government tasked the National Territorial Planning Agency with organizing design competitions for three sports complexes: “Niko Dovana” in Durrës, “Skënderbeu” in Korçë and “Flamurtari” in Vlorë.

For Korçë, the Danish studio CEBRA was selected, with a project that envisioned the stadium as part of a broader sports and urban complex. All three projects were conceived around a model in which the development of the property and surrounding commercial spaces would create the economic interest for a private partner that would also finance the sports infrastructure.

In July 2025, the Albanian Investment Corporation launched procedures to find private partners. The deadline for submitting bids was September 30, 2025, but the tender produced no result: no applicants submitted bids for the stadiums in Korçë, Durrës or Vlorë. The procedures were officially declared canceled several months later, in March 2026.

Thus, the architectural projects that aimed to transform not only the stadiums but also the surrounding urban areas remained at the stage of renderings and models. For Korçë, five months after the failure of the procedure to find a private investor was confirmed, the concrete intervention now going to procurement is a contract worth less than 3 million ALL to keep the existing stadium functional and rehabilitate it.

“KORÇA BOOM”