If the statues in Universitate square are your usual meeting place, you might want to choose a new one, because the Bucharest city hall is temporarily moving the statues to make room for a much needed underground car park. It will be the first underground car park built in Bucharest in the last 20 years, so it should be worth it. The car park will be built on two underground levels and it will feature 325 parking places. It will take more than a year to built it so the statues will be moved to Izvor park during this time.

The car park is being built through a public – private partnership with a consortium made of Terratest Cimentaciones S.L., Alius Inver siones S.L and Simex S.A, which will invest EUR 15 million in the car park and will run it for 49 years.

The four statues which will be moved this week represent Romanian ruler Mihai Viteazul (in pic), former Culture Minister Spiru Haret, the founder of the Romanian Academy Ion Heliade Radulescu and Gheorghe Lazar, the founder of the first Romanian school.