A plan to open a new
McDonald's in Rome's historic Borgo Pio quarter, by St Peter's
Square, has met with opposition from a group of cardinals, ANSA
sources said on Thursday.
The plan is to open the fast-food restaurant in a
Vatican-owned property that had been vacant after a bank left
the premises some time ago.
Local residents and business have expressed concerns
about the prospect that the venue could transform the
traditional nature of the area.
But several cardinals who live in the complex are upset
after APSA, the agency that manages Vatican assets, asked them
to chip in to the costs needed for work on the building.
Indeed, in the summer the cardinals-tenants received
letters from APSA telling them that part of their salaries would
be deducted due to the work, sources said.
This is because APSA had agreed to rent the
538-square-metre property to McDonald's Development Italy at a
monthly rent in the tens of thousands of euros - three times
more that the most recent offers it received for the venue -
sources said.
For McDonald's to be able to open a restaurant though,
APSA had to order work to create a chimney for it, via an unused
elevator shaft.
This chimney is potentially against local building
regulations that the Vatican would not be exempt from in this
case, the sources said.
The cardinals are said to be unhappy not about the loss
of income, but because they were not consulted first, the
sources said.
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