During the Turkish administraion, the Constanța Prefecture or Kiustenge, was operating on the place where today is “Mihai Eminescu” High-School. The first Romanian prefect of Constanta, Remus Opreanu has also installed here, in this mansion, in 1878, after Dobrogea was joined to Romanian Kingdom, as a result of the War of Independence. In 1882, the mansion inherited from Turks was destroyed by fire. Remaining without prefecture, the Romanian administration started to put the problem of an adequate office of an Administrative Palace in Constanta which is today the Military Club headquarters.
The first efforts in this regard were made but only in 1892, after prefect and his team for ten years has been moving from one building to another.
The project was changed 3 times, this time being hired a new architect Daniel Renard, who in 1903 received the Casino order of construction in Constanta. Daniel Renard has left its mark especially on the interior, where he striven to create the “la belle epoqhe” ambience. Quite remarkable is the staircase, monumental and elegant. To be noted that many of the architectural elements decorating the interior of the Administrative Palace, today the Military headquarters, can be seen in the Constanta Casino halls.
On 17 August 1903, in the presence of Minister Dimitrie Sturza and many other personalities both local and from the capital, was laid the cornerstone of the Administrative Palace. In the same day, the officials also celebrated the beginning of works on the first avenue of the city, Elisabeta Avenue.
Like any important event the Administrative Palace inauguration was celebrated by a sumptuous banquet which was held on board of the ship “Princess Mary“. / “Principesa Maria“. The local media have failed to report even the smallest details about this elegant banquet organized by the prefect Virnav. We thus learn the full list of the 54 guests, toasts held by the prime minister Sturza, prefect and mayor, list of the menu written entirely in French, that the guests had fun on the Dinicu’s orchestra chords and that the boat lit enchanting. We also found that this party has cost 1.219,22 lei, considerable amount for 1903, which was paid by the City Hall due to the fact yhat the banquet was offered by the Constanta commune.
On 1 February 1906 final reception of the building was made by a special appointed commission, commission that has found many construction defects, such as cracks in walls, imperfect carpentry, paint peeled and fallen, no grout on windows, bad sat parquet, unfinished steps at the honor stair, poor sanitation and other such defects. Maybe to a certain extent, however, one can say that they were right, because the building required many repairs over time, proving to be quite shaky. Obviously, in the spirit of the time, most criticized than the building was prefect Scarlat Virnav accused that he started all utilities workings in order to juggle with public moneys in his own interest. Neither the architect Daniel Renard has not escaped the criticism.
