Saint-Denis Building Raided in 2015 Paris Attacks to be Demolished

Four years later, the ghost building is still standing, still empty, with only one sign of life: a young tree has lodged its roots in the facade, just above an old public phone booth, observes Le Parisien on the spot.

On November 13, 2015, the Raid police had stormed the building at number 48 where the alleged organizer of the November 13, 2015 attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was hiding, along with an accomplice and his cousin.

The time has come to demolish the building due to the fight against unhealthy housing. Upstream, there are certain prerequisites to be respected. For David Proult, deputy mayor (PCF) in charge of urban planning, "things are moving". "But that doesn’t mean the building will be demolished tomorrow! If a single co-owner refuses to sell, we will have to go all the way through the procedure, with a declaration of public utility..." As a result, there may be likely expropriations.

On the negotiation side, the landlords and the Society for the Redevelopment of Old Neighborhoods (Soreqa) do not agree on the price per square meter. "They are offering us 1,700 euros per square meter for the apartments, and 2,700 euros per square meter for the commercial spaces, which is half the prices in the area," grumbled the main co-owner. The latter owns the five ground floor shops and four apartments.