But will grandiose project styled like London's Docklands ever get built?
Rybalsky Island ,off Podil, could become a grand business district and one of Ukraine’s largest investment projects if a bold development plan comes to pass.
Representatives of the Ukrainian Center of Engineering, Marketing and Management (UCIMM), a Kyiv development company, say their “Kyiv City” plan will be a local version of Paris’ La Defense and London’s Docklands sites – high-profile business districts with bold architectural conceptions.
If the plan is carried through, the Dnipro River industrial site, which now hosts the Leninska Kuznya shipyard, will be what the media calls a “mini Manhattan.” Office buildings as many as 120 storeys high will accommodate two million square meters of office space, and there will be housing, parkland and several hotels and culture facilities, including a cinema, concert hall and museum. Some government ministries might be moved out to the island as well.
The project reflects authorities’ desire to limit construction in central Kyiv that might degrade downtown’s historic character.
Will it happen?
Behind the plan is the Ukrprominvest business group, which controls the Leninska Kuznya shipyard and is associated with top tycoon Petro Poroshenko. The shipyard is the island’s main land user, covering 53 of the island’s 102 hectares. But UCIMM’s architect Heorhiy Kurovsky said at a Dec. 7 meeting of the Kyiv City Planning Council that the shipyard intends to move its operations from the island to southern Ukraine, possibly Kherson oblast.
The shipyard intends to petition Kyiv’s municipal council to redefine the island as a socio-residential area, instead of as an industrial one.
Questions remain, however, about whether this ambitious project, which UCIMM says should take 10-15 years, can be pulled off. Ihor Kononenko, head of Ukrprominvest’s board of directors, said that the project has a 40 percent chance of realization.
The main obstacle is that Kyiv City project would require land that Ukrprominvest currently does not have access to. It would have to rent or buy parcels that currently, Kononenko says, “belong to various ministries and owners.” He said that “the removal of those facilities may take several years.”
The other obstacle is money to build with. Kononenko said the project could be effected by a union of mostly international investors. But whoever they are, they will have to produce a lot of money. Expert estimates about how much the construction will cost range from several to tens of billions of dollars.
Nick Cotton, regional director of DTZ Zadelhoff Tie Leung, an international property advisor in Kyiv, says the ambitious project could take 30-40 years.
“London’s Docklands got massive central government investment, so I question whether the private sector is going to have the confidence to take on such a scheme. Who’s going to be the first developer to come to Rybalsky Island and build the first tower in a new location? I’m not sure that any local developer would have the means for that,” Cotton said.
Central location
UCIMM won the rights to the project last June in a contest under the auspices of the Ukrainian Academy of Architecture. They were the only firm that suggested transforming the island into a modern business center defined by skyscrapers, and their design provides for smaller buildings to be shaped like sails.
“Highrises will help keep a high level of compactness and facilitate effective use of the island’s infrastructure,” said Valeriy Knysh, UCIMM’s director. Rybalsky Island location in the Dnipro and its proximity to Kyiv’s center make it an attractive spot for development. Its communication with the city will improve if planned bridges connecting the island are completed. Planners would also like to put a metro station on the island.
