On April 10, the Nizhny Novgorod port filed a claim with the arbitration court against the actions of the Ministry of Property Relations of the Nizhny Novgorod Region, which refused to conclude a new lease agreement for the land plot on which the port is located for 49 years. This was reported to Vedomosti by the press secretary of the deputy governor, Ksenia Vaulina. The hearing is tentatively scheduled for May 17.

According to the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Nizhny Novgorod Port, Andrey Ryndovsky, the enterprise, according to the Land Code, must buy the land plot on which it is located or sign a lease agreement by the end of 2007. The head of Nizhny Novgorod, Vadim Bulavinov, issued an order to conclude a 49-year lease agreement with the port back in 2005. In September 2005, the regional legislative assembly transferred the right to dispose of land in the regional center to the government of the Nizhny Novgorod region. But the regional Ministry of Property refuses to conclude a lease agreement with the port, says Ryndovsky, so the port is forced to go to court to legally resolve the issue.

The Ministry of Property offered the port to lease the land for three years, says Vaulina. At the spit – the confluence of the Oka and Volga rivers, where the port is located, a large business center, “City-Streka,” is planned to be built. Therefore, the Ministry of Property considered a long-term lease of the site to be inappropriate.

As previously reported, the business center project envisages the construction of 24 high-rise buildings up to 50–60 stories high, which will house office, hotel, shopping, entertainment and sports centers with a total area of over 3 million square meters. Construction is planned to begin in 2008 and will last six years.

"We are ready to discuss options for leasing this land plot, but there were no constructive proposals for dialogue, which is especially surprising given the statements by government officials about moving the port this year," says Ryndovsky. In March 2007, Alexander Bodrievsky, director of the department of urban development of the Nizhny Novgorod region, spoke about the advisability of moving the port to the Balakhna district of the region.

Yuri Borisenko, head of the Real Estate. Land. Construction department at the Vegas-Lex law firm, believes that the Nizhny Novgorod port has every chance of winning the right to lease for up to 49 years. At the regional level, legislative acts that would limit lease terms are generally not adopted, and plans to build other facilities on this site are not a reason for refusal, says Borisenko.

Andrey Baranov, CEO of the production and construction company Nizhegorodsky Dom i Ko, reports that the current maximum rental price for this plot is 1 million rubles per 1 hectare per year. However, when the land is put up for auction, the payment for the right to lease it for development will reach at least $4 million per 1 hectare plus a monthly rental fee of 500,000–700,000 rubles per 1 hectare, he believes.

Business center instead of a port