Cultural heritage confiscated from racketeering. A course toward adaptive reuse and effective management

The real estate portfolio confiscated from racketeering includes several properties with significant cultural value, as well as great economic value. Such buildings are also endowed with strong symbolic meanings, as testimony of the fight that the State leads against mafias. The difficulty in raising funds for building recovery and management, especially in the start-up phase, is the main obstacle to a rational reuse of a property portfolio intended to grow over time. New uses compatible with the needs of preservation, with the aims of social benefit and with the settlement demand of the area offer meaningful development opportunities, both for symbolic significance due to the return of property to the community, and for the boost that enhancement can give to economic and cultural growth of the country.In order to highlight the relationships between choices of reuse, outcomes and problems encountered during operation, the study proposes the analysis of buildings with significant cultural value confiscated from racketeering, and broaden the case of the Medici’s Palace in Ottaviano (NA).The paper describes a method to support the decision-making process, in order to choose new compatible uses, and to identify more effective management models for the assets confiscated from the mafia, in relation to the legislative framework and the local development dynamics.