[TI] Salemi, Sicily

[Barbara Jenkins]

An earthquake devastated the Sicilian village of Salemi in 1968, killing 200 
people and reducing thousands of buildings to rubble. Down the hill, a 
faceless modern city sprung up in the village's place, but the historical 
center has been a ghost town ever since. Except for a few dozen habitable 
villas, the ruins are frozen in time: tattered curtains hang on broken 
windows and rusty table legs protrude from heaps of rubble.
Now Salemi is taking an unusual step to reincarnate the old town: it is 
giving the dilapidated villas away. The city's new celebrity mayor, Vittorio 
Sgarbi, a former national deputy culture minister and an avid art critic and 
colorful television personality, is offering 3,000 of the villas for the 
bargain-basement price of ?1 a piece. The catch? The new owners have two 
years to renovate, staying true to each building's original characteristics 
and, when possible, using the area's local artisans, masons and builders.
The idea, conceived with the help of advertising guru Oliviero Toscani, is 
to attract foreign investors interested in a remote Sicilian escape for 
vacations or businesses. (Italians have already passed on previous similar 
offers.) The authorities hope the plan will turn Salemi into a boomtown, 
employing hundreds of out-of-work locals in construction and renovation 
projects. "These houses are like a heart pierced by a thorn," says Toscani, 
who is best known for his controversial advertisement photography using 
human hearts and anorexic fashion models. "They are dangerous, but they also 
represent a patrimony that is slowly dissolving away."
So far, agents involved in the sale say there's been plenty of interest. 
David Moss, who runs MIPC, a bilingual Italian property consultancy with 
offices in London and Italy, is working with Sgarbi and the Salemi city 
council to help non-Italian speakers work through the finer points of 
applying for the free houses. In the week since Salemi's housing closeout 
was announced, Moss says he has received nearly 2,000 inquiries from 
interested buyers--including artists, philanthropists and even a television 
producer who envisions a DIY series built around renovating these 
dilapidated structures. He is so inundated with requests that he plans to 
offer a free downloadable letter-of-intent to his Web site for those who 
want to go directly to the Salemi city council.

Whoever signs on must be willing to pay $100,000 or so in renovation costs 
to bring the villas up to snuff. Experts estimate the basic renovation cost 
at between ?900-?1,200 per square meter, based on local market prices for 
labor and materials without any extras. That hasn't deterred Michel Delran 
and Francois Teyssier, French natives who live in the United Kingdom. They 
hope to buy one of the villas to create a 100 to 200-seat performing arts 
theater where visiting artists could show their work. They plan to apply for 
a European Commission grant for the project, which would be a notable boost 
for this oft-forgotten part of Italy's troubled south. "When I discovered 
this project, I was thrilled. The concept is brilliant," Delran told 
NEWSWEEK. "Of course there are risks involved, but this is an opportunity 
and I hope it attracts like-minded developers."
The concept is inarguably one that would be beneficial to Sicily's stagnant 
economy on many levels. Increased revenue from taxes would boost 
infrastructure and there seems little question that unemployment, which 
hovers around 30 percent in this part of Italy, would decrease substantially 
as artisans are put to work on the renovations.
What about the Mafia? After all, Salemi is just a stone's throw from 
Corleone where Mafia don Bernardo Provenzano was captured in 2006. The 
project's leaders hope that successful anti-Mafia efforts, which in recent 
years have led to the arrest of hundreds of top-level members of the Cosa 
Nostra, will reassure buyers. Delran, for one, doesn't seem bothered by the 
possibility of corruption. "We can't ignore the Mafia," he says, "But by 
raising the interest in this project Sgarbi has given it visibility that 
should act as a deterrent. Corruption may be there, but with everyone 
watching, they may think twice."