On Friday, the Urban Development Council reviewed the reconstruction project for the unfinished hotel on the Karpovka River Embankment, 31. OOO Severnaya Korona, which is handling the project, is going to demolish the unfinished hotel, leaving only the foundation. The residential complex project commissioned by Severnaya Korona was completed by OOO Architectural Workshop Yassa. Instead of the hotel, which has an area of about 50,000 square meters, a residential complex will appear. Of the 65,000 square meters, 32,000 square meters will be for housing, another 5,000 square meters will be apartments, 4,220 square meters will be offices, and about 1,000 square meters will be a kindergarten, according to the materials for the council.

Most members of the city council considered the project of the Yass workshop too "monotonous", "massive" and "heavy". The architects were outraged that the investor did not hold an architectural competition to select an architectural project in a landmark place for the city. The customer needs to finalize the project and again coordinate it with the city council, believes the city's chief architect Yuri Mityurev. Despite the fact that the council's decision is only advisory in nature, without it it will be more difficult for the investor to coordinate the project, Mityurev believes. He clarifies that the law does not oblige the investor to hold an architectural competition.

Construction of the hotel on Karpovka began more than 20 years ago (see inset). In 2004, the unfinished building was acquired by Eurofinance Mosnarbank. Market participants estimated the hotel's costs at that time at approximately $90 million.

Representative of OOO Severnaya Korona Tatyana Otreshko refused to comment after the meeting of the urban development council. Evrofinance Mosnarbank did not respond to Vedomosti's request.

According to SPARK-Interfax, the sole owner of Severnaya Korona LLC is the Cypriot Four Holdings Ltd. According to architect Vladimir Grigoriev, whose studio worked on the Severnaya Korona hotel project, last fall the project still belonged to Evrofinance Mosnarbank. This is also confirmed by a former employee of Evrofinance Development.

After the Land Use and Development Rules came into force, the status of the site changed – it began to be classified as a residential development, and the conditionally permitted hotel function in this place is 5,000 sq. m., so the company decided to change the hotel project to a residential one, says Grigoryev.

Nikolay Pashkov, CEO of Knight Frank Saint Petersburg, estimates investments in construction at approximately $2,000 per square meter.

The hotel's $90 million cost, he said, will increase the load on residential and commercial space available for sale (around 40,000 sq. m.) by about $2,200 per sq. m. And luxury housing is sold for 150,000–200,000 rubles per sq. m., so the project can be recouped, the expert believes.

Housing instead of a hotel