On March 4, 2010, the centennial of the birth of former Brazilian President Tancredo Neves, his grandson and then-Governor of Minas Gerais, Aécio Neves, inaugurated Presidente Tancredo Neves Administrative City in the state capital, Belo Horizonte. Designed by legendary architect Oscar Niemeyer, this modern complex of buildings is now the seat of the state government, including 18 departments and 25 agencies.

A survey conducted by the Department of Government Planning and audited by BDO Trevisan estimates that the newly centralized administration (formerly the state government’s offices were widely dispersed, with over 50 different addresses) will produce a savings of BRL 92 million in 2010 alone.

A stroll through the halls of one building, called “Gerais,” built by a joint venture led by Odebrecht, makes it clear that this is a high-tech facility, and the 16,000 civil servants who will begin using the entire complex in stages later this year will have cutting-edge facilities at their disposal. The works for the Administrative City were divided into three lots. “Gerais” was Lot 2.

Aside from its dazzling architecture, the complex boasts advanced lighting, water and ventilation systems, a modern data transmission network and other advances that will give greater flexibility and reliability to the state government’s administrative procedures. “This was made possible by the work of a team of competent, dedicated and united professionals who pursued a single goal,” says Fernando Ribeiro, the director of the joint venture led by Odebrecht.

Presidente Tancredo Neves Administrative City is considered the third pillar in Minas Gerais’s Plan for Integrated Development (PMDI), which aims to ensure economic growth and social progress in that state between 2003 and 2023. The other two pillars, or structuring projects, are called “Management Shock: People, Quality and Innovation in Public Administration” and “Modernized Tax Collection.”

Centralized government should produce an annual saving
of BRL 92 million as of 2010

A native of Diamantina, Minas Gerais, “President Kubitschek’s hometown,” Odebrecht CEO Sérgio Neves observes: “It’s fantastic for us at Odebrecht to play a role in fulfilling this dream. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a project like this around here,” he says, thinking back to the day, about 70 years ago, when Kubitschek, then mayor of Belo Horizonte, commissioned the young and already renowned architect Oscar Niemeyer to build the Pampulha architectural complex, also located in the northern part of the state capital.

In a video produced to publicize the project, Niemeyer waxed nostalgic: “It feels like we’re going back to the days of JK (Juscelino Kubitschek). The same enthusiasm, the same drive to get things done, even optimism. That’s what I like.”