Construction project in central Kyiv sparks conflict between developers and claims that commercial center could ruin Ukraine bid to host EURO 2012
A construction project in center could ruin the joint Ukraine-Poland bid to host the EURO 2012 Soccer Championships.
The Ukrainian-Polish bid was among 10 submitted last year by countries looking to host the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) championships, which is considered soccer’s second-greatest tournament after the FIFA World Cup.
One of the developers says the complaints from local soccer officials regarding the project exploded last November after the Ukraine-Poland bid made the EURO 2012 shortlist together with Italy and Hungary-Croatia.
UEFA will choose the host country at the end of this year.
The construction in question is called Olympic Plaza, a 106,000-square-meter shopping mall that includes a six-screen cinema complex and other entertainment facilities. Ukrainian soccer officials say the problem with the mall is that it is being built directly in front of Kyiv’s central 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium, which will serve as the venue for the EURO 2012 final if the Ukrainian-Polish bid pans out.
Serhiy Ryabinin, whose construction and development company NEST owns a stake in Olympic Plaza, said that if Ukraine doesn’t win the bid, he expects all of the blame for the failure to fall squarely on his shopping mall.
In 2004, NEST formed a joint venture with Lithuanian real-estate developer Hanner to buy into the construction project, each acquiring a 40 percent stake from Kyiv Jewelry Factory and Liechtenstein-based real estate developer NSM Management. Kyiv Jewelry Factory retained a 20-percent share in the project. The project’s total cost is valued at nearly $115 million.
Ryabinin estimates that at the time of the acquisition, nearly 25 percent of the work on the shopping and entertainment complex had been completed, costing around $15 million. He said that as of Jan. 1 a total of $37 million has been spent on the project. According to the JV’s prospectus, the project is slated for completion in March 2007.
Ryabinin said that prior to the site acquisition in July 2005, all of the relevant documents and permits had been checked by an international law firm, which found no violations in the papers and gave Nest-Hanner the go-ahead to launch construction.
Ryabinin said the problems began after Ukraine made the UEFA shortlist, and several weeks before the UEFA Commission on Stadiums and Security visited Kyiv to inspect the venues listed in the Ukraine-Poland bid. The Olympic Plaza developers suddenly found themselves in conflict with the Ukrainian Football Federation and the EURO 2012 executive committee, with both authorities claiming that the construction was in violation of UEFA standards for stadium security.
Ryabinin said their demands ranged from “tear everything down, because we need empty space for a parking lot” to appeals to Ukraine’s government “to study the issue thoroughly.”
Previously, the construction site was home to a large outdoor market.
Adding fuel to the fire, Ryabinin also said that the construction of the mall might be in conflict with the business interests of Hryhoriy Surkis, the president of the UFF and a parliamentary deputy. He claims that Surkis has rival plans to build a 150,000-square-meter business center and hotel on the territory surrounding the stadium. If Olympic Plaza is built, some of the exit passageways from the stadium would pass through the land that, Ryabinin claims, Surkis wants for his own project.
Surkis was not available for comment.
As for the UEFA requirements that the construction allegedly violates, the developers weren’t shown any.
Hanner Invest CEO in Ukraine Sergej Ovchinikov says every time he asked UEFA for a specific list of requirements in order to make adjustments to the construction plans, UEFA said there were too many to list.
Ovchinikov added that the federation still has no plans for how Olympic Stadium should be reconstructed to comply with UEFA standards so that the shopping mall won’t be in violation.
Mysterious requirements
UFF spokesman Valeriy Nykonenko did not provide details on the essence of the UEFA requirements, but questioned the legality of the allocation of land for the construction of the mall back in 2002.
Ivan Fedorenko, head of Ukraine’s EURO 2012 executive committee, said that the construction of a shopping mall would make it more difficult to evacuate people from the stadium safely, as required by UEFA. When asked to specify what requirements the construction would violate, he said that fire trucks should have easily accessible driveways, and that the construction of a shopping mall would complicate that requirement.
However, Fedorenko said that as soon as the Olympic Stadium reconstruction project blueprint is finalized, his committee would attempt to reach a compromise with the shopping mall developers.
UEFA senior consultant on stadiums and security Ernie Walker, who visited Kyiv to inspect local stadiums in December, told the Post that he personally could not understand why someone would build a shopping mall so close to a stadium.
He called such a decision “not very satisfactory,” since it placed stadium crowds into “a relatively crumpled situation,” given the resulting lack of space in front of it.
But ultimately, Walker said, it would be up to the local or national governments to guarantee that people’s safety would be ensured and issue a so-called “security certificate” to the stadium.Walker dismissed claims that there were any UEFA standards that could be used as a guideline in this case. He said what was really at issue was “construction rules that vary from country to country.”
