| Metro Cash & Carry will pay aviators for permission to build a hypermarket near the landing strip The Voronezh branch of the Metro Cash & Carry retail chain will be forced to finance the modernization of the runway of the local aircraft manufacturing plant. In exchange, the plant will withdraw its claims to the location of the Metro shopping complex being built on the outskirts of Voronezh. Yesterday, General Director of the Voronezh Joint Stock Aircraft Company (VASO) Vyacheslav Salikov said that the aircraft plant and Metro Cash and Carry LLC had reached a compromise regarding the shopping complex under construction. The basis of the compromise was the agreement of the retail chain to invest a certain (not publicly disclosed) amount in updating the security system of the factory airfield.
Last December, Metro Cash and Carry LLC won a competition to lease 5 hectares of land in the Levoberezhny district of Voronezh. The company is building its first hypermarket in Voronezh on it. The company offered the city authorities 17 million rubles as rent. per year. It allocated 18 million euros for the construction of the facility, most of which has already been invested in construction. The opening of the hypermarket is scheduled for August 26 this year.
However, in June, the neighboring VASO began to protest against the project. On June 20, the plant management presented the conclusion of the Federal Service for Supervision of Transport (Rostransnadzor) that the hypermarket under construction is located on the landing trajectory of the VASO airfield. This airfield is used to send aircraft manufactured and repaired at VASO, as well as for test flights. The conclusion stated that the hypermarket could be operated only after modernization of the flight safety control systems serving the VASO airfield.
VASO General Director Vyacheslav Salikov claims that the plant’s management warned Metro about the same thing even before the construction of the hypermarket began. However, then the opinion of aircraft manufacturers was ignored.
Now their concerns have been actively supported by the governor of the Voronezh region, Vladimir Kulakov. He noted that the modernization of airport systems is especially necessary because “the production of An-148 regional aircraft will begin in the near future, which, including during testing, will land over the shopping center.”
Yesterday, Mr. Salikov announced that Metro had agreed to pay for this work. Mikhail KUKUSHKIN |
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