Toulouse: the former university restaurant will become the performance center of the TFC
While the ruin of the Daniel Faucher university restaurant, on the island of Ramier, was to become a cultural center, according to the project submitted by the Compagnie de Phalsbourg, the Crous de Toulouse, owner of the premises, finally awarded the call for offers to the TFC, which wants to set up its performance center there, dedicated to the physical and mental preparation of professional players.
It is a beautiful imbroglio which is announced. In a sibylline tweet, the management of the Toulouse football club (TFC) has just announced that the club has acquired the disused building of the former university restaurant Daniel Faucher, close to the Stadium and its training grounds. The idea is to set up its future professional sector performance center there, dedicated to the physical and mental preparation of pro players, by 2025.
The announcement is a big surprise insofar as the building was promised until then to the Compagnie de Phalsbourg, a large real estate developer, who also won the contract for the construction of the future Occitanie tower near the station. Matabiau. But the regional center for university and school works (Crous), owners of the premises, has obviously changed its mind. Without visibly warning the first representative yet committed to a cultural and popular foundation project.
Promise of sale lapsed…
Éric Paillot, Deputy Director of Development for the Compagnie de Phalsboug does not hide his incomprehension. “We were on a very serious program, we had signed a promise of sale with the Crous and even obtained a building permit purged of any recourse, he explains. But concerning the transaction with the TFC, we are not aware of anything, and I will refrain, therefore, from any comment while waiting to know more.
This remains difficult in the absence of official communication from the Crous, which we have requested in vain. Perhaps the public body grew impatient when it saw nothing concrete coming from the Compagnie de Phalsboug project. Last year, Eric Paillot had defended himself from any delay in the realization of the cultural foundation. “If the project seems a little slowed down, it is both because of the economic context linked to the Covid, but also because it is part of the larger project of the Grand Parc Garonne, of which it will be a part. structuring element”, he had named in the Dépêche du midi. By refusing, however, to commit to a timetable and the amount of investments to be made. “We have to integrate new constraints related to walking routes, parking, roads, the definition takes time. The perimeter of the land tax base itself has evolved,” Eric Paillot justified himself.
The TFC wins the bet
For him, the structure of the building, with an area of nearly 1,500 m2, was not deteriorating, but had to be cleaned and rid in particular of the asbestos still present. A site now devolved to the TFC which is pleased in its tweet “to have received the call for tenders formulated by the Crous of Toulouse relating to the acquisition of the former university restaurant Daniel Faucher, in the heart of the island of Ramier and which will host, in 2025, the new Performance Center for the professional team” (sic).
For the club, this is an opportunity to bring together all of its facilities on the same site. Very close to the Stadium, and the training center, where two additional fields were created last year on land belonging, again, to the University of Toulouse. Not to mention the training center on the banks of the Garonne. In short, the opportunity was too good for the TFC, even if the Compagnie de Phalsbourg risked being annoyed by the situation. Unless the abandonment of the somewhat idle project of a cultural foundation ultimately suits everyone…
A building labeled “exceptional monument”
On the site of the Daniel Faucher university residence, in Toulouse, a stone’s throw from the Stade de la Poudrerie gateway and the Empalot district, the former university restaurant, closed for 21 years, after the explosion of AZF, has become a tagged and looted ruin. This monumental building of raw concrete and brick, which rises on the banks of the Garonne, is however on the list of remarkable monuments of the past century. It is an example of post-war “brutalist” architecture, signed by the architect Robert-Louis Valle, a disciple of Le Corbusier. The building, designed and built in the 1950s, is labeled “exceptional monument of the 20th century”. The TFC will therefore not be able to touch the structure to install its performance center there, but will have to get rid of the asbestos which still plagues the premises…