Translated material
The last season of "The Actor"
New project on the Sochi coast
The Sochi sanatorium "Akter", located in the very center of the resort, next to the Radisson SAS Lazurnaya hotel, will change beyond recognition. The MR Group company intends to implement the Actor Galaxy project, part of which will be a complete reconstruction of the sanatorium. It is expected that it will close after the current tourist season.The project involves the construction of a 32-story business-class residential building and a resort complex on the site of the current sanatorium on an area of 4.5 hectares on Kurortny Prospekt. According to MR Group commercial director Irina Dzyuba, the site was purchased by MR Group with an encumbrance that obliges the company to reconstruct the sanatorium. The sanatorium is managed by the company ZAO Sanatorium Akter, “but perhaps after reconstruction the complex will be transferred to another Russian manager,” Ms. Dzyuba said. The company plans to begin construction work on the Actor Galaxy at the end of the summer season and complete it in the fourth quarter of 2010. According to representatives of MR Group, the total investment in the project will be $250 million.
Actor Galaxy will essentially become one with the 16-storey residential complex Royal Park, which MR Group is building next door and plans to deliver in the second half of 2008. A resort complex with a total area of 21.7 thousand square meters will appear on the site of the current Akter sanatorium. m for 278 rooms. The area of the residential building located in the immediate vicinity will be about 117.4 thousand square meters. m. The format of this housing is defined as temporary residence apartments, which will not allow the owner to obtain registration. According to Ms. Dzyuba, the majority of buyers of this type of housing are people from other cities who purchase real estate in Sochi either for investment purposes or for temporary residence, and therefore registration is not a decisive factor for them when buying an apartment. The starting price for apartments in the Akter Galaxy residential complex will be $4.5 thousand per sq. m. meter.
“Such apartments should be at the level of a five-star hotel in terms of service. So far there are practically no such complexes in Sochi , with the exception of hotels. This type of housing is just developing. All additional services are included in the cost of operation, in monthly payments, which indirectly affects the cost of living,” says Angela Kuzmina, director of the sales department at IntermarkSavills. According to Stanislav Gripas, director of regional projects at Vesco Group, in most cases the range of functions in Sochi residential complexes is inferior to those of similar class in Moscow. “Nevertheless, at some sites there is a practice of professional management of client real estate: homeowners are asked to plan a schedule for visiting the apartment in advance, and the rest of the time the developer will rent out the property,” Mr. Gripas noted.
Market experts have not yet undertaken to estimate the profitability of development projects. “This is difficult to do, since most elite properties are at the construction stage, and in many of them, the infrastructure is being revised during the construction process,” says Dmitry Sazanchikov, director of marketing and regional development of the consulting company GVA Sawyer. Rising real estate prices benefit project owners. According to GVA Sawyer, in elite new buildings the price of 1 sq. m is 4-12 thousand dollars per sq. m. meter.
The cost of apartments over the past two weeks has already increased by 20-50%. According to Ms. Dzyuba, MR Group initially raised prices by 10% in the Royal Park complex, but after seeing an increase in demand, it decided to increase the price by another 30%. Now the price per square meter in the Royal Park residential complex is 197 thousand rubles. Deputy General Director of MR Group Viktor Mikitei says that the company is not going to stop at two projects: “We plan to build two more complexes, one of them will be residential, and the other will be cottage. The volume of construction is 150 thousand square meters. m". The total investment in the projects will be approximately $350 million.