City Hall participates in workshop to discuss the role of Brazilian city centers

Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes participated in the workshop “How to revitalize and innovate Brazilian city centers” in the city center on Friday (23/9). The event was organized by the Centro-Rio Alliance, a non-profit association created in September last year that brings together Brazil’s largest real estate companies and investors, with more than 50 buildings in the downtown area of ​​Rio.

 

– For the first time, there is an institution, an entity that demands something for the city center. All the initiatives taken until the creation of the Centro-Rio Alliance were based on public policy decisions. Infrastructure investments were made in the region and what we are trying to do now is to get the city to turn its attention to the center. This is the infrastructure, the most historic area of ​​Rio, there is mobility, people are closer to their workplaces. We already have 5 residential units launched in the Porto Maravilha region – said Eduardo Paes, who opened the workshop.

 

According to Marcelo Haddad, CEO of the Alliance, the meeting aimed to discuss new ideas and successful international practices for the problems that Brazilian city centers have been facing, such as economic decline, lack of security, degradation of infrastructure and excess homeless people.

 

– This situation in the city center is not a problem exclusive to Rio, but rather to many cities in Brazil and around the world. We need to unite the government and private sector in a task force to restore the city center’s status as the main economic hub of the Marvelous City.

 

The workshop was attended by policymakers, investors and business leaders committed to making downtown Rio the first Economic Revitalization Area (ARE) in Latin America. Participants included the president of the Companhia Carioca de Parcerias e Investimentos (CCPar), Gustavo Guerrante, and the municipal secretary of Urban Planning, Augusto Ivan.

 

– Today we have a new reality, with 5 residential units launched in the Porto Maravilha region, with more than half already sold. At the same time, the City Hall has been working to bring more residents to the Center with the Reviver Centro program. This workshop is important because we are meeting with market representatives and showing the work of the City Hall – said Gustavo Guerrante.

 

Inspiration

The inspiration for the Aliança Centro-Rio project comes from the so-called Business Improvement Discricts (BIDs), created in Canada to revitalize urban areas through public-private partnerships, in which property owners and business owners collectively contribute to maintenance, security and cleaning in addition to those provided by public bodies.

In addition, IDBs develop communication campaigns to promote the region, attract the public and new businesses to generate economic development. Worldwide, there are more than 1.200 IDBs in commercial areas in countries such as the United States (in New York alone, there are 76 IDBs in the main regions of the city), Australia, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Germany, Singapore, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Ireland.

In Brazil, Bill 250/2020 is currently being processed in the Chamber of Deputies in Brasília, which establishes the Brazilian version of the IDB by creating the Economic Revitalization Areas (AREs). The proposal, if approved, could attract the private sector to efforts to revitalize Brazilian cities, offering services in addition to those provided by the Public Authorities, through Private Economic Revitalization Organizations (OPREs) (non-profit private law entities established with the specific purpose of recovering, developing and maintaining a single ARE). Like international IDBs, the AREs would be funded through contributions based on the market value of non-residential properties for the purposes of collecting IPTU, limited to a maximum of 5%.

About the Centro-Rio Alliance

The Centro-Rio Alliance develops actions that seek to contribute to the revitalization of downtown Rio, with the objective of promoting the region, which concentrates around 300 thousand professionals and 60 thousand companies, with revenue of approximately R$ 560 billion per year, that is, they account for 32% of the city's revenue, according to data from Rio-Negócios.

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September 23th, 2022

Appointments: Centro-Rio Alliance Center of Rio Rio de Janeiro Partnership and Investment Company City Hall of Rio workshop