Abandoned 19th-century fortress near Warsaw to be turned into hotel

An abandoned fortress near Warsaw, which was initially constructed by Napoleon and later expanded by Tsarist Russia, will be turned into a hotel under plans announced by the developer that bought the site over a decade ago.

Modlin Fortress is an imposing defensive structure located where the Narew and Vistula rivers meet, about 30 km north of Warsaw. Its fortified barracks, built by the Russians in the 1830s, are believed to be Europe's longest building, stretching around 2.2 km.

Earlier, between 1806 and 1812, work on the fortress began when the Duchy of Warsaw was a client state of Napoleonic France. However, after Napoleon's failed invasion of Russia in 1812, the area fell back under Russian rule.

After Poland regained its independence in 1918, it modernized the fortress, which became the site of the Battle of Modlin during Nazi Germany's invasion of 1939. It continued to serve as a military facility until the turn of the 21st century, but is now largely abandoned .

In 2013, after years of trying to offload the fortress to a private owner, Poland's Military Property Agency (AMW) succeeded in selling it to Grupa Konkret, a Polish developer, for almost 36 million zlotys – well below the 220 million zlotys AMW had originally hoped for, reported Gazeta Wyborcza at the time.

In 2018, ambitious plans were presented to turn the former fortress into a complex of apartment buildings, hotels, a casino and a yacht marina. However, they received a negative response from conservation authorities and were abandoned.

Meanwhile, Konkret has already developed hotels in the former garrison laundry, which is located away from the main fortress, and in a historic palace nearby.

Last week, Konkret finally announced plans to turn part of the former barracks into a hotel that will serve the nearby Modlin airport. Initially having 123 rooms, the facility would later be expanded to add a further 116.

The new hotel will have its lobby in the former fortress's Cadet Gate. “The place that once guarded the entrance to the citadel will now be a new opening for it,” says Karol Fiedor, head of the architectural firm, CDF Architekci, that has developed the plans for Konkret.

“By making the Cadet Gate the heart of the future hotel, we are writing a new history for this place, while preserving what is most important for the building from a conservation perspective,” he adds. His company's plans claim there will be “minimal interference” with the building's external architecture.

However, speaking to Gazeta Wyborcza , the regional conservative of monuments, Marek Przeździecki, said that, while he had received proposed plans from the investor, “there is still a long way to go” before the project is approved.

Main image credit: Przemek Pietrak/Wikimedia Commons (under CC BY-SA 3.0 )