Contract Signed for the First Phase of Construction of the Gaming Center Novska

The contract for financing the first phase of construction of Gaming Center Novska was signed on Tuesday in Novska.

It will be the first center of its kind in Europe. Additionally, this is the first project financed from the new European Fund for Just Transition. The project is led by the Public Institution Regional Coordinator of Sisak-Moslavina County, with partners including Sisak-Moslavina County, the Development Agency SIMORA, and the City of Novska.

The first phase will be financed with a non-repayable grant of 26.3 million euros, while the total financing for the entire project will reach 100 million euros. The center for gaming industry will be built in the Business Zone of the City of Novska on an area of eight hectares.

The campus will be a complex of multiple buildings: a faculty with a sports hall and swimming pool, a student dormitory accommodating 250 students, an accelerator with a VR studio, an incubator with a video game testing hall, and other supporting facilities.

The space will be dominated by an e-sports arena resembling a grounded UFO, which will have 2,500 spectator seats and space for gaming competitions.

In the future gaming campus, a five-year higher education program will be conducted with 50 students annually, along with a secondary school program for 24 students. In the first phase of the project, roads, sports fields, faculty buildings, student dormitories, and a power plant will be constructed. Construction work will begin this year, with completion and the opening of the gaming center expected in 2027.

The contract for financing the first phase of construction was signed by the Minister of Regional Development and European Union Funds Šime Erlić, the Director of the Central Agency for Financing and Contracting of EU Programs and Projects Dragan Jelić, and on behalf of the beneficiaries, the Director of the Regional Coordinator of Sisak-Moslavina County Andreja Šeperac.

The ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Andrej Plenković and the Minister of Labor and Social Policy Marin Piletić, under whose mayoral term the project of the Gaming Center Novska began in 2018.

Sisak-Moslavina County has shown resilience after the Homeland War, deindustrialization, floods, and earthquakes, and in all the adversities it faced, it saw its opportunity, said Prime Minister Plenković.

He is pleased that the construction of the center will be financed from the EU’s Fund for Just Transition.

– The purpose of the fund is to transform areas of traditional industries into areas of future industries. Sisak-Moslavina County and the City of Novska have demonstrated the strength to adapt to new trends and directions of development. They have embarked on the path to the industry of the future and digital transformation, marking themselves on the gaming map of Europe – said Plenković.

In Novska, the construction of the gaming center begins, but also a new era of development, said Minister Erlić.

– Strategically, this is a Croatian project, as we have made a breakthrough into an important industry of the future, digitalization, and created a new environment. Here, professionals for future occupations will be educated. This project, as the first financed from the Fund for Just Transition, is an example of its purpose. The area of traditional, technologically outdated, and environmentally unacceptable industries will be transformed into a center for the industry of the future, which is still rare in Europe – said Erlić.

– Back in 2018, Novska was barely noticeable on the map of Croatia, and today it is the center of gaming in Europe. Young people come to Novska for education, but they also stay to live here – said the Mayor of Novska Marija Kušmiš.

Since 2018, unemployment in the City of Novska has decreased by 50 percent, while employment has increased by 17 percent, she emphasized.