Costa Antunes pictured during last week’s media visit to Hotel Estoril
The Macau Grand Prix Committee Coordinator, João Manuel Costa Antunes, will be serving as an adviser to the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, Alexis Tam.
Mr Tam said yesterday that Costa Antunes will be providing advisory services for two of his Secretariat’s main projects: the Hotel Estoril and the new public hospital.
Costa Antunes will be leaving the Macau Grand Prix Committee after organizing this year’s event in November. “He will be working for my cabinet as an adviser. We have many projects at hand,” stated Mr Tam, as quoted by Radio Macau.
The engineer recently took part in a tour of the decrepit Hotel Estoril, where he acknowledged that he would be willing to provide technical advisory services, given his background as an engineer.
During last week’s visit to the hotel, Mr Costa Antunes recalled that to revamp the building would be far costlier than to build a whole new facility from scratch.
According to he Secretary, the hotel has not yet been demolished because of a “minority” of citizens calling for its renovation. A petition has been handed to the government by Macau Root Planning calling for an assessment of the building’s value.
Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza Vieira, who will be designing the project, is also in favor of building a whole new facility, instead of revamping the existing building. The architect was planning on travelling to Macau next month, but the Secretary revealed that Siza Vieira’s visit has been postponed. He will be heading to Macau only after a decision has been made regarding the petition. CP
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