Construction on MIBC “Moscow-City” Slows Down
The rumors about the termination of works at the construction sites of the Moscow International Business Center “Moscow-CITY” proved to be grossly overstated: the world financial crisis only slightly corrected the original plan.
Natalia Orekhova, PR director at the public corporation CITY said in an interview to the City Space magazine that the only exception was the implementation of the Tower “Russia” project – the lack of financing made the planners to reschedule its putting into operation from 2012 to 2016. The problem of changing the tower height (the planned tallness is 600 m) has not been solved so far. “All other investors confirmed their determination to continue with their projects,” Ms. Orekhova clarified.
Meanwhile only three months earlier Moscow’s chief architect Alexander Kuzmin stated at a briefing with reference to the developers that the financial crisis might seriously impact the times of MIBC delivery since only partly sold properties would be completed. As regards the business district as a whole, in his opinion, it can well be decided that full-fledged blocks should be delivered to the market, albeit not as large as had been planned before the crisis.
Shalva Chigirinsky helming Russian Land also confirmed that in view of the difficult financial situation when banks charge exorbitant interest rates his company decided to “freeze” a number of projects including the famous Tower “Russia”. At the same time he expressed confidence that this economic situation wouldn’t last long and the projects would sooner or later be realized.
Time will show whose forecast is more accurate. However, Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov gave a commission to the developers at a field meeting at MIBC to accelerate the pace of construction works and finish them off within the set times. If his direction is followed most MIBC properties will be commissioned before the end of 2010.
At any rate, the developers constructing their projects on the MIBC grounds have no intension to halt the works. In particular, Capital Group plans to complete the mixed-use Capital City project on time while Inteco and Snegiri Development go on building the “City-Palace” mixed-use with Wedding Rooms.
As of the early March, about 700,000 sqm of floor space had been turned over for operation, including Tower “West” (the investor is Mirax Group), a 18-story tower which is part of the Capital City project developed by Capital Group LLC, and the retail pedestrian bridge Bagration which is a link between MIBC and Kutuzovsky Avenue – one of the city’s major thoroughfares. According to official reports, the 27-story office center “Tower 2000” is fully occupied; as for the business center Naberezhnaya Tower (the investor is the Turkish company ENKA), 17-story and 27-story buildings are occupied completely and more than 50% of space in the 60-story tower has already been rented out. BC “Northern Tower” developed by CJSC Severnaya Bashnya is also partially filled up with tenants. Among the lessees and owners of the marketed premises are: IBM, KPMG, City Bank, VTB Bank and energy companies.