ZŁOTA 44 GREEN LIGHT?
At last, there is some good news for Orco’s famed high-rise project, Złota 44, in downtown Warsaw. Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court ruled in March that there are no grounds for undermining the project’s conditions of development. Protests against the conditions of development as well as the project’s construction permit were filed with administrative courts by a group of people living next to the now halted Złota 44 construction site.
Orco is now hoping that the Supreme Administrative Court will rule in its favor in regards to the construction permit so it can resume its work on the project. Orco claims problems first cropped up following a ruling last fall by a lower administrative court, which sided with opponents and revoked the construction permit in September. Work on the Daniel Libeskind-designed building had stopped almost half a year earlier, however, due to Orco’s financial problems.
OTT CHALLENGED BY MINORITY SHAREHOLDERS
Orco’s Złota 44 victory, however, was overshadowed by other news. Millenius Investments, a group that controls more than 10 percent of the voting rights at Orco, announced it would soon be calling a shareholder’s meeting to oust Orco founder J.F. Ott along with the rest of the board. The announcement marks the first serious challenge to Ott’s authority since the company’s financial troubles began more than a year ago. It’s thought that a group of investors, impatient with the progress of de-leveraging the ailing developer, has banded together with Orco bondholders to force a change of direction at the company.
LAFAYETTE ON WENCESLAS?
After a decade of reporting on the hole at the bottom of Wenceslas Square left by the removal of the Diamant building, construction looks like it’s finally underway. A source close to the project has told CIJ that the investor – Wolfgang Müller – has hired a project manager, Andreas Roczek.
Crucially, an agreement is said to be nearing completion that would bring a Galerie Lafayette department store to the site. There are just two others in Europe: a 30,000 sqm store in Paris and a 9,000 qm one in Berlin. The size of the Prague store hasn’t been finalized, but it’s likely to cover the first basement level, plus the two above that. An opening of the store is not anticipated before 2013.
The remainder of the building would be filled with office and flats, with larger apartments to face Wenceslas Square.
STATE TO AUCTION OFF PROPERTIES
Just as the floor fell out of property prices, the Czech state has decided to start off-loading its assets in bulk. The Ministry of Internal Affairs has a list of 117 properties it plans to sell via digital auctions or in public tenders. The Economic deputy minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Zuzana Kubíková, claims both of these methods are equally transparent, but she refused to specify any criteria by which the Ministry will judge bids.
The government is hoping to earn CZK 1bn(€39.2m) on the sales, money that’s sorely needed for the state budget. Worryingly, Kubíková insists that they will by no means sell below cost, even if they do not fulfill this goal.
One of the attractions would be a former automobile service center in Radlice, Prague 5 which Slovak developer HB Reavis bought for CZK 280m in an electronic auction two years ago but never paid for. It claims the ministry was slow in processing the sale and that it lost financing it had arranged for the deal. Also of potential interest is a 5,000 sqm brownfield located in Kolín.
MOSQUE TROUBLE?
It’s rare that a construction project takes on political importance, and at first it seemed this would also be the case with the proposed Muslim Culture Center in Warsaw. Last year, when the scheme (which includes the construction of a mosque) was displayed at an exhibition of new architecture in Warsaw, it attracted little to no controversy. But just as the investor (the Muslim League in Poland) begun pushing the construction up above ground level on a plot in the capital’s Ochota district, posters calling Varsovians to a protest began appearing on the streets of the capital.
The protest was organized by an association called Europa Przyszłości (Europe of the Future).The Muslim League in Poland rejects claims of any radicalism, which the Muslim Culture Center might serve. According to the league, financing of the mosque is controlled by the Polish Interior Ministry. Warsaw’s city hall said that the project’s development is in line with the law, and there is no legal way to stop it.