Taipei City Government announced Saturday (August 8) that construction on the long-suspended Taipei Dome can resume immediately, after it approved a request by the project's main contractor, Farglory Group.

In a press release, the Taipei City Construction Management Office said that after it issued a new building permit on July 16, Farglory had submitted revised design plans and an application to resume construction, which the office approved on Friday.

Construction had been suspended for more than five years due to disagreements between the city and the company over the safety of some of the design features, but Farglory later agreed to rebuild parts of the dome that were not constructed according to design plans, reduce the venue's overall capacity, and increase fire safety and evacuation facilities, the office said. While allowing construction to resume, the building office, however, called attention to its ongoing areas of disagreement with the contractor.

It said Farglory will be required to add safety and fireproofing features to several of the dome's five existing stairwells, in order to receive a usage permit, citing Article 97 of Taiwan's Building Technical Regulations. In addition, if it wants the Dome to be used to host concerts and other large-scale gatherings, it will need to pass a performance-based design review by the Taiwan Architecture and Building Center, the office said.

It added that it had fined Farglory and ordered it to remove cotton sound insulation which the contractor had installed at the building site without permission.

Although Farglory has filed an appeal, the office maintained it was within its rights under the Administrative Appeal Act, and said it would continue issuing fines until the contractor removed the insulation.

In terms of the project's leadership, the statement noted that Farglory had appointed a new supervising architect, but said it still needed to seek the city's authorization to appoint a new design architect. The Taipei Dome stadium project has been at a standstill since May 20, 2015, when the Taipei City government ordered Farglory to halt construction due to safety concerns and the discovery of some 79 building features that were not constructed according to design specifications.

At the time, Farglory had already completed 80 percent of the work needed to complete the multi-purpose stadium. In the intervening years, there have been multiple lawsuits between the two sides over the resumption of construction.

During that time, Taipei City Government has also conducted seven urban design reviews, two environmental impact assessments, and two fire safety and evacuation reviews on the site. The dome is located to the north of Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Taipei's Xinyi District.