A leading Ukrainian property development company is gearing up to construct a billion-dollar office and residential complex in Kyiv’s Podil district.
A leading Ukrainian property development company is gearing up to construct a billion-dollar office and residential complex in Kyiv’s Podil district, partly backed by a Ukrainian billionaire.
HCM Group announced Feb. 14 plans to build a multi-functional, office-residential complex in an old industrial zone of 15 hectares between Novokostiantynivska and Frunze streets in Podil.
Offices, retail, entertainment venues, and a hotel with a cultural and exhibition center, and residences will go into the project. The complex will be one million square meters in area, 300,000 square meters of which will be underground.
“Considering the scale and characteristics, the project is unique not only for Kyiv, but for all of Ukraine,” HCM said in a statement.
HCM will finance the project with its own funds, along with loans and private investment, company officials said.
HCM’s partner will be Development Construction Holding (DCH), a real estate developer owned by Ukrainian billionaire Oleksandr Yaroslavskiy.
Korea’s Hanwon Forum Architectures & Engineers was hired to design the complex, having worked with HCM on a previous project.
Cooperation with Korean architects stems from a strong history of successful construction projects in Seoul, said Oleksandr Kostiuk, the executive director of HCM Group.
“Korean companies managed, within a short period of time, starting from the mid-1970s, to resolve many infrastructure and transportation problems of this big city,” he said.
Valeriy Kirilko, managing partner of Concorde Development, a Kyivbased real estate services provider, said the “Kyiv market is ready for such a project since current demand in the city is so big that this project will not satisfy demand completely.”
He thinks that in the future, more and more such projects will appear in Ukraine “since construction of commercial real estate in city districts is the dominant future trend … and such projects will appear not only in Kyiv, but in Ukraine’s regions too.” Kirilko noted that HCM Group is a company with a rather long history and it has already implemented many projects in Ukraine. “It occupies rather serious positions on the market overall,” said Kirilko.
DCH is a rather new company on the market but has already implemented five projects in Ukraine, he added. “It has good potential and in the future, it will demonstrate itself as a very successful and quality developer,” said Kirilko.
HCM said it plans to start construction of the new complex in 2009 or 2010.
Founded in 1998, HCM developed the luxury residential complex Sofiyivska Brama, the Ihorevskiy and Panorama business centers and the Opera boutique hotel in Kyiv, which is owned by tycoon Rinat Akhmetov.
The group also developed warehouse complexes in Obukhiv, south of Kyiv. Currently the company is managing some 50 projects in various segments of the property market.
HCM didn’t confirm how many apartments, offices and residences are in the works. Nevertheless, the company noted that the apartments will be business class.
