**Part Third—An Experimental Model of "Project of Economic Feasibility for the Enhancement of Unused Public Buildings in the Strategic Planning and the Integrated Projects"**

### **6. The SOSTEC Model**

The Laboratory LaborEst and the spin-off Urban Lab, both active at the Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria, have developed an experimental model of "economic feasibility project for the development of unused public buildings" called SOSTEC; this model can be used when the public decision maker intends to verify whether the economic conditions exist for the use of private–public partnership agreements to implement and/or to manage a project.

The model is aimed at verifying the feasibility/economic sustainability of reuse hypotheses of unused public buildings, which is consistent with, and derived from, an overall idea of territorial development. The model, which can also be used in the case of buildings with a certain cultural value, is divided into three sections (Table 10):


The model structure allows to derive the reuse hypotheses from the knowledge of the territory dynamics and to verify the feasibility/sustainability of the formulated hypotheses.

Indeed, the model internalizes not only the usual socio-economic surveys (demographic trend, labor market, infrastructure and mobility system, cultural and environmental heritage, etc.), but also the stakeholders' point of view and this information, which derives from the programs in progress or already finished.

Particularly, as far as the programming is concerned, the references are assumed for the strategy and the objectives already identified by the local community, to develop coherent hypotheses, and the other programmed actions, with which eventually operate in synergy [43]. This cognitive framework should not be taken as a constraint, but as an element of awareness: The re-use of the specific building can also follow a different direction compared to the framework of the interventions already planned with other tools, but a similar choice should be motivated and conscious [44,45].

From the design point of view, (Section B—reuse hypothesis) choices to implement the model are synthetic: It is sufficient a functional program, equipped with the physical quantities of spaces intended for the different functions: These hypotheses allow to verify, at first glance, the coherence between the intrinsic characteristics of the building and the hypotheses of reuse formulated.

From the economic point of view (Section C—financial economic plan), the model provides for the preliminary evaluation of investment costs (Works for the recovery and re-functionalization of buildings; Furniture, hardware and software equipment for the usability of buildings; communication and marketing; etc.) followed by the economic dynamics analysis of the management phase. These dynamics are influenced, among others, by the type of manager entrusted to manage the asset, that can be a profit or not-for-profit subject: This hypothesis also determines economic implications, as explained later in the article.

The main purpose of the model, as mentioned, is the verification of the economic feasibility/sustainability of public-private partnership hypotheses: It serves, in other words, to verify the existence of sufficient conditions of convenience for private subjects, in the project realization and/or management in compliance with the expected public objectives, from which the work itself originates.

The term "feasibility", used in this article, applies to verify the profitability of an investment; instead, the term "sustainability" is used (making exclusive reference to its economic dimension), with the attempt to verify the balance during the management phase of a project.

The financial economic plan, therefore, will have the purpose of verifying the feasibility/sustainability of the reuse hypotheses and, consequently, identifying the economic conditions that can be placed at the basis of the partnership agreement.

**Table 10.** Structure of the SOSTEC Model.

*6.1. Section A—Cognitive Surveys*

The first section is divided into a series of sub-sections:

*A.1 Territorial framework*

The territory of the Municipality to which the cognitive investigation refers is described highlighting its position on a provincial and regional scale, associated with the description of graphic representations on appropriate cartography.
