Published #1 (21) January 2004

At the end of November 2003 the Kiev City Council finally approved a project of reconstruction of the square in front of the Olympic Stadium. In this place at the end of 2005 a new shopping and entertainment center “Olympic Plaza” will rise. UZTS is the investor and future owner of the center. The architectural concept was developed by the London’s architectural agency “Benoy” and Sergey Babushkin’s Architectural Union. The London’s Cushman & Wakefield / Healey & Baker are involved in the conception development of the project. The center will arrive as 5-level building with total area over 90,000 sq.m. One level will be underground and will include a 6000 sq.m. supermarket and specialized stores. Investor decided to invite a supermarket operator which will be new for the Ukraine’s market. Now the negotiations with several large foreign operators are in process. As the project’s manager Mykhaylo Yermolenko said, “Existing operators in Ukraine do not satisfy the investor’s requirements."

Main retail units will occupy the ground and the first floors. On the second floor there will be restaurants, food-court, fitness-center with two pools and multiplex cinema. Next to the main areas there will be constructed a 6-level parking facility for 1,200 cars. Besides, two parking levels will be in the basement floor and will have a direct access to this floor. The architectural concept also sets for the atrium with glass roof.

The main entrance will face the Velyka Vasilkivska St. Besides there will be a direct access from the ‘Respublikanskyy Stadium’ metro station.

The summer pavilions of the restaurants will be placed on the square in front of the center. Also there will be special landscaping, fountains, pools which during winter may be transformed into skating grounds. On the Zhylianska St. there will be one more building which will be connected to the main one on the second floor level by the passageway across the road.

The shopping center will present the stores for the middle and higher class kievers, therefore there will be several higher class stores. Today there is a tendency in Kiev to build underground shopping centers. “Olympic Plaza” is intended for those who feel uncomfortably underground. It will provide nice outside views and atrium with a glass roof. It is expected that “Olympic Plaza” will become a 24/7 destination for entertainment and shopping for the whole family. Parents may leave their kids in the specially provided childcare rooms while they are busy with their shopping. Also in the fitness center there will be a special pool for kids.

It is expected that subscription fees for the fitness center will be quite reasonable for the kievers with middle income (while the quality will stay the same the prices will be several times less than current fees for the elite sports clubs).

The project’s costs are estimated at around $80 mln. The UZTS is planning to finish construction in the third quarter of 2005. The JSC PivdennoZahidTransBud is the main contractor. In some stages of construction several other subcontractors are involved: for the construction of the underground entrance from the metro station the Metrostroy company was involved – it has a required experience in construction of such kind. For the roof assembling it was decided to involve a foreign contractor, because Ukrainian companies do not have a required experience.

As people behind the project say, today there are no projects of such scale in Ukraine. The investors do not see real competitors on the market.

The capitalization of the project is expected in less than 7 years. “We are considering the fact that the rent fees are getting lower every year. The new shopping centers appear, the competition becomes tougher. Our project has the ability to set the rent fees even up to 40% less than current fees. This is one more reason why we do not expect problems with renting”, the project manager Mykhaylo Yermolenko said.

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