Dozens of planned projects cutting through red tape, awaiting financial backing in years-long struggle to get off the ground
enthusiastic developers as the most ambitious ever planned for the capital. Others were described as unique in the former Soviet Union.
But years have passed, and many of the plans, proposals and pipe dreams presented to the public as done deals have never progressed far beyond the initial press conference.
The roll of stillborn projects includes a five‑star hotel, a grandiose amusement park, what would have been the nation’s largest shopping mall and a luxury residential complex.
Investors in some projects acknowledged that things didn’t quite go the way they had expected. In other cases, the promoters have simply disappeared.
Such is the case of the Kyiv Land amusement park, which was scheduled to debut on the Left Bank in May 2001. Officials at Rust, the project’s developer, said in October 2000 that the $40 million park would include state‑of‑the‑art rides, a water park, Ukraine’s first Pizza Hut restaurant and an Italian Bravo ice‑cream parlor. Eighteen months after the park’s supposed completion date, construction has yet to begin.
Officials at Proximity Ukraine, which conducted a public‑relations campaign on behalf of the project, said they’d like to know where Rust is now. They haven’t been paid.
The developer simply disappeared, said Proximity Ukraine Director Iveta Delikatnaya.
“Our firm made a big PR campaign for [Rust], but they didn’t pay,” she said, “and the project never got organized.”
Another major project, the five‑star $50 million Inter‑Continental Kyiv hotel on Sofyivska Square, has been stalled for four years.
Ugur Ertegrul, project manager for Turkey’s Aysel, the project’s general constructor, said that investors lacked the funds needed to make the hotel a reality. Started in 1997, the project was scheduled for completion the following year. According to Ertegrul, labor on the hotel is “almost 90 percent complete. We need just nine months and $30 million to complete the hotel.”
St. Sophia, a private company, has a 60 percent interest in the project. Aysel owns 10 percent, retailer Argo Trading owns 5 percent and 25 percent belongs to the city administration.
Ertugrul said that Turkey’s Eximbank was considering providing financing for the project, but it wants loan guarantees
| Ugur Ertegrul, project manager for Turkey's Aysel. (Post photo by Natalya Kravchuk) |
from the Ukrainian government to mitigate its risk. St. Sophia manager Mykhailo Franchuk said the government had refused to provide the guarantees the Turkish bank wanted.
Ertugrul said his firm has been involved in a number of successful projects in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Russia. Among the company’s projects are an international exhibition center in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and a five‑star hotel in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Both Ertugrul and Franchuk said they didn’t know when the project might be completed.
Managers at two other long‑awaited projects, the Lybid Plaza shopping mall and Dniprovska Prystan, a luxury residential complex, said they got bogged down in the city’s bureaucracy. Officials at the companies, however, remain optimistic about their projects’ future and insisted construction would begin soon.
Announced in November 2000, Lybid Plaza was supposed to have been built on Kyiv’s Lybidska Square by mid‑2002. Construction hasn’t begun yet. Hungarian developer Transelektro was supposed to invest $90 million in the project.
Vitaly Vyshnevsky, director of the Lybid Plaza joint venture, which manages the project, said his firm has been collecting the various permits needed for construction to commence.
Anatoly Karminsky, who heads the city’s investment department, said it has taken officials and developers two years to bring the project into compliance with regulations.
Permit problems have also plagued the Dniprovska Prystan project, according to architect Oleksandr Komarovsky, who said that the developer has been accumulating permits and paperwork since 2000.
“The number of city agencies whose approvals are needed before construction can begin has multiplied over the last several years,” Komarovsky said. That has complicated the permitting process, he said.
Dniprovska Prystan, which will be situated on the Left Bank, represents a potentially large foreign investment. The company is a subsidiary of Britain’s Royalstone, Ltd.
Komarovsky said his firm still plans to begin construction later this year.
Lybid Plaza’s Vyshnevsky said that although city authorities have finally approved construction plans, his firm still hasn’t acquired the building site, which is presently occupied by a market. He said that Transelektro, the project’s major investor, was unwilling to pay the $13 million the land’s owners initially requested.
Negotiations are underway and the asking price has dropped to about $1.5 million, he said. Agreements have been reached with five of the seven landowners.
