Vienna councillor warns delays threaten St Marx event arena

Construction of the planned event arena in St Marx appears to be stalled, with Vienna Sports Councillor Peter Hacker warning that project partner CTS Eventim may be facing difficulties, ORF reported on Wednesday. “Otherwise, we would already be seeing a building pit,” Hacker said.

Hacker made the comments on Monday at a press conference for the Erste Bank Open tennis tournament, which will be held at Vienna’s Stadthalle in late October. The tournament is also intended to move to the St Marx arena in the future.

“When I imagine the same delay in hospital construction, I get cold sweat on my forehead,” Hacker said.

The arena was originally announced in 2019 with an opening planned for 2024. OVG Bristol was presented as the hall’s partner in 2023, but unsuccessful bidder CTS Eventim challenged the decision in court. In November 2024, CTS Eventim itself was presented as the partner.

Completion was planned for 2030, with the city expected to cover 153 million euros of the costs. According to the Kurier newspaper, however, it is still unclear whether that plan will go ahead. The partnership agreement between the city and CTS Eventim has not yet been signed.

CTS Eventim told ORF that preparations for the project were continuing. The company said it had prepared the plans and documents required for further implementation and submitted them for coordination.

Wien Holding is also advancing preparations for the site, the company said. CTS Eventim added that extensive coordination was a normal part of a project of this size and that discussions with Wien Holding were still ongoing.

The Kurier reported that the project could even be at risk of collapse, citing unnamed Social Democratic Party sources who described the draft contract as “disastrous”. The newspaper also reported that 30 million euros had so far been spent on planning and consultancy costs.

Vienna’s Freedom Party blamed Mayor Michael Ludwig of the Social Democratic Party. Party leader Dominik Nepp said the project had been allowed to drift for years and called the lack of clarity over whether construction would take place an admission of failure by the mayor.

Vienna’s People’s Party also criticised the project, pointing to years of delays and millions spent on planning and consultancy without a firm decision to build. The Greens called for the arena to be stopped, saying the city needed to act before more money was wasted and describing the hall plans as the wrong priority.