Iconic Larnaca building demolished after 25-year fight

Local LarnacaTop News Iconic Larnaca building demolished after 25-year fight 768576769 4423301707928692 3573937933106776736 N 1 1024x728 Relevant News Iconic Larnaca building demolished after 25-year fight 12 August 2026 Journalists’ union alarmed by three criminal cases against Drousiotis 12 August 2026 Freedom Holding Corp. reports 40% revenue growth in Q1 FY2027 12 August 2026 Natasa Christoforou 12 August 2026 FacebookXWhatsAppEmailPrintViber It took the Karpasitis family 25 years to shift the cabaret operators out of their building opposite Larnaca port. On Wednesday they started knocking it down. The last of those operators had been running an unlicensed nightclub on the ground floor until the Larnaca District Local Government Organisation (DLGO) shut it down, having judged the building on Spyrou Kyprianou Avenue to be at serious risk of collapse. That closure cleared the way for demolition, which should finish in the next days. The family still owns the plot, which holds a second abandoned building, and plans to sell it so that an investor can develop the prime site beside the port. Andreas Karpasitis, one of the owners, told philenews his family had spent a quarter of a century trying to get the cabaret operators out. “We were trying from 2001 to get out the people who had the cabarets, who had not paid rent since 2000. The last one left a short while ago. It took 25 years,” he said. The family fought through the courts and with the police, he said. The final cabaret closed six years ago and the premises became club D’LUX and AfroClub, according to Karpasitis. The family hired a civil engineer who found the building dangerous, then applied to the Larnaca DLGO for permission to demolish it. Karpasitis said they filed that application around the time a building collapsed in Germasogeia, killing two people. “After that the authorities were alarmed and they got them out of there, and as soon as we got the demolition permit we went ahead immediately,” he said. Larnaca residents know the Karpasitis building well, and what they remember of it depends on their age. Younger ones associate it with the decline of an area of cabarets that repeatedly drew police attention. Older ones recall the family’s first furniture factory and the first bouzouki venues, which opened as the port flourished in the late 20th century. That history starts with a bet on the port. Karpasitis said his grandfather bought the land in 1950, expecting the port to be built there one day and the plot to become developable. The grandfather died before that happened, and his children put up the building between 1963 and 1964, moving the family furniture works into it. The factory relocated to the Larnaca industrial estate around 1970. Karpasitis said his father and his siblings lived on the first floor through the 1970s. “As my mother tells me, when she went to live there she could not see a single building in the area,” he said. The port grew busy and important after the 1974 Turkish invasion, he said. “With the sailors who came to Larnaca the first bouzouki venues appeared, which later became cabarets. There were various cabarets and nightclubs on that site.” Subscribe to our Newsletter Latest News Journalists’ union alarmed by three criminal cases against Drousiotis Freedom Holding Corp. reports 40% revenue growth in Q1 FY2027 Columbia lawsuit alleges biased disciplinary hearings against Palestinians Pentagon says US strikes killed 153 civilians in 2025 Presidential pardon frees 68 prisoners for August 15 holiday Eclipse craze grips Spain, Iceland as millions get set for ‘event of the century’ Norway wealth fund posts record $184 bln profit in first half of 2026 Follow en.philenews on Google News and be the first to know all the news about Cyprus and the world.