In the western part of Vipavski Križ the plinth wall of the church and an L-shaped structure together define a square. Today this space is used as a parking lot. The fourth side of the square is limited by a row of houses lining a street that is set at an angle. The buildings following the churchwall are in a bad condition and no longer in use. They are to be converted into a hostel and a restaurant, while one of the houses in the row will reside the owner of the hostel and contain a shop. The careful treatment of the stone buildings, the use of familiar elements such as the walkway and the intelligent arrangement of the new utilisation will revaluate the selected area.

Ajdovščina is the second largest town in the Vipava Valley which recently made it to Lonely Planet’s list of Top 10 Places to Visit in Europe for 2018. The valley is ripe for a tourist boom, relying on three key pillars: wine and food, adrenaline and recreation, and cultural and technical heritage. The Municipality of Ajdovščina recognizes the opportunity and potential of the town as a prime hotel location. The construction of a hotel with at least 100 beds is among the top priority projects outlined in the essential strategic document for the development of the Municipality of Ajdovščina. The Municipality wishes to realize the project in the upcoming years, but before 2022. In this context it sees the derelict facility of the first industrial flour mill in Slovenia, which is located on the outskirts of the old town centre of Ajdovščina, as a unique opportunity for building an exclusive commercial and tourist hotel complex.

In the past, Ajdovščina held a vital role in this region. Over two thousand years ago, the Romans constructed the first road station next to the River Hubelj, expanding it to the mighty military fort Castrum Ad Fluvium Frigidum (‘Fortress by the Cold River’) designed to protect the east border of the Roman Empire. In modern times, Ajdovščina acts as a hotbed of entrepreneurship, housing a great number of companies. In addition, throughout the year the town hosts many business meetings and tourism events (e.g. the Vipava Grape Harvest, Vipava Valley’s Open Cellars, Strudelfest Theatre Festival, Ajdovščina in May, Ultratrail, sports events, days of culture etc.) in order to attract visitors and tourists. Due to the increasing demand for accommodation, the Municipality of Ajdovščina is set to build an urban hotel to cater to the needs of the incoming leisure and business travellers.

The object of the purchase is a two-storey building, once the most powerful mill in the empire, built by Wenzel Jochmann around 1850. It stands on a strategic location, on the edge of the compact part of the town of Ajdovščina, where there are ruins of Roman spa; on the right bank of Hubelj river, in front of the bridge and the main road. It represents two buildings and a spacious yard / parking lot. The building is unsustainable and needs renovation or demolition and a construction of a new one.

In the Urban Development Plan of the town of Ajdovščina, in the manner of urban planning in the area of the old towns of Castra and Šturje, which represent the mental part of the city, revitalization is envisaged on the basis of a regulatory plan or individual reconstruction in agreement with the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of the Republic of Slovenia, on the basis of the Spatial Regulatory Conditions („PUP“).

Municipality of Ajdovščina has a strategic plan to build the »Vipava Valley EXPO« fair on this area. – EXPO Vipava Valley is designed as an intersection and a meeting point of providers of local harvest and products (not only agricultural but also other products of the Vipava Valley and the region as a whole) as well as visitors and consumers. EXPO Vipava Valley will be formed as a tourist destination which will stop the transit passenger headed towards other Slovene destinations. In the long run, EXPO Vipava Valley is expected to become an independent tourist destination.

The complex of EXPO Vipava Valley anticipates a construction of multiple facilities which would function simultaneously as a demonstration and promotional place of important economic operators of the Vipava Valley, a construction of common meat and dairy learning processing establishments, a cold store, storage rooms and rooms for product completion, a smaller conference centre, a catering establishment, a reception of a displaced hotel featuring a tourist information centre of the Vipava Valley destination, a showroom of local economy, a centre for promoting craft and economy as a whole, a showroom of industrial heritage featuring a centre for passing traditional skills of ancient crafts and skills that are in the process of being forgotten as well as the land of water wheels on which the entire industrial development of Ajdovščina and the Vipava Valley was based.