The sale of Reykjavík landmark Perlan has been approved, although the city council minority says it amounts to the city paying itself.
Originally owned by the deeply in debt company Reykjavík Energy, rumours abounded from the moment news of Perlan being on the market went public. While there was brief talk late last year that Russian investors wanted to turn it into a casino, nothing materialised where that was concerned. At another point, Reykjavík Energy issued a statement of willingness to sell the property for about 1.7 billion ISK to parties wanting to build a hotel and hot spring bathing facility on the property.
RÚV now reports that Reykjavík Energy has agreed to sell Perlan to the city of Reykjavík for 950 million ISK.
City council members for the Independence Party objected to the sale, saying that it amounted to the city paying itself money – Reykjavík Energy is 94% owned by the capital.
At the moment, the Ministry of Culture and Education is in talks with the capital over making one of the tanks of Perlan into a natural history museum, with exhibitions in Perlan itself. The other tanks will remain in the ownership of Reykjavík Energy.
No time frame for turning Perlan into a museum has yet been made.
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