Tech companies are known internationally for providing great work spaces for their employees - a vital ingredient in attracting the best talent. But Lviv's tech companies plan to take this a step further by also supplying cool, affordable housing for their employees.
A
nine-floor building called IT House will be built four kilometers away from the
city’s center, with 72 apartments, a parking lot, a conference room, and an
open public space on the first floor for everyone’s free use. Over 30 people
have already paid the entrance fee of Hr 25,000 to receive an apartment when IT
House is built.
Comfort and
modern design are part of the package, but apartments are also meant to be more
affordable than those sold at the current market price. A square meter in IT House will cost $580,
while the average square-meter price in Lviv is $1,446, as of April 2 according
to agent.ua.
Approved
tech employees who take part in this project and purchase apartments will be
allowed to put their apartments on the market later and at market prices. They
will also be able to sell to whomever they wish.
Construction
is scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter of 2015 and to be completed by 2017.
The project
is the initiative of Lviv’s IT Cluster, an alliance of over 30 of the city’s IT
companies, including local offices of the biggest outsourcers and software
developers operating in Ukraine, including SoftServe, Eleks, GlobalLogic,
Devcom, and N-iX.
The site
for the building was provided by Lviv’s City Council and IT Cluster claims that
it has no commercial interests in the project, according to Maryna Mavdryk of
IT Cluster.
The quality
of the construction will be strictly controlled by the representatives of the
companies in IT Cluster, as some have already paid the entrance fee to receive
apartments in the building.
“It’s like
building a house for yourself. Some IT Cluster representatives will be living
in the building, so there is no sense for them to supply construction with
cheap, low-quality materials just to save money like most building contractors
do,” Mavdryk says.
Not
everyone will get a spot though. Each company will have a specific quota for
the number of employees that can buy apartments in the building.
The way
apartments will be distributed within the quota system remains unclear. If, for
example, the number of those who want to buy apartments is larger than a quota,
it must then be decided within that company. Mavdryk says
that the companies involved will set up a transparent procedure by the end of
spring.
“If
successfully accomplished, the project might set an example for tech companies
in other Ukrainian cities. We might as
well build more IT houses and even outside of Lviv,” Mavdryk says.
Kyiv Post staff writer Bozhena Sheremeta can be reached at [email protected]. The Kyiv Post’s IT coverage is sponsored by AVentures Capital, Ciklum, FISON and SoftServe.
