Maria Abakumova Forbes Editorial Board

...and other sketches from the future of buildings that officials moving to Greater Moscow will have to vacate

President Medvedev instructed to prepare proposals for the relocation of ministries and departments to the territory of New Moscow by July. It is clear that even with strong political will, such a massive migration is not a quick thing. But it's not impossible either. The organizations mentioned in Medvedev's instructions (Federal Assembly, government, courts, and so on) occupy about fifty buildings in Moscow, and half of them are within the Garden Ring. The total area of this property exceeds 250,000 sq. m. m. This is more than the area of all premises within the Garden Ring that are currently for sale.

It is expected that the buildings of ministries and departments will be sold to investors, and this will help recoup the costs of moving. If the famous formula of three important characteristics of a real estate property “Location, location and location” is correct, buildings should be snapped up like hot cakes. But turning them into commercial properties is not easy. Buildings for officials retain an outdated office-corridor system; many of them are too “deep” and dark. Forbes selected the most interesting of the buildings being vacated and tried to predict their fate.

*Elena Sablina for Forbes*
Department store "State Duma", Okhotny Ryad, 1

What you can do: shopping complex or hotel

Cost per square meter of retail real estate in this area: $13,400 (Russian Research Group)

The State Duma building on Okhotny Ryad is much larger than it seems at first glance, because behind the facade lies a second building, the entrance to which is located on Tverskaya. “The State Duma is a very complex object,” sighs Artem Tsogoev. Wide corridors, pompous halls and spacious meeting rooms are difficult to use for commercial purposes. In addition, the building is very “deep”, that is, there are few windows and many dark places. Alexey Mogila believes that a large department store can be built in the Duma.

*Elena Sablina for Forbes*
Hotel "MFA", Smolenskaya-Sennaya Square

What can be done: apartments, hotel

Cost per square meter of residential property in this area: $17,500 (IntermarkSavills)

“A real diamond in this crown,” Alexey Mogila, director of the retail real estate department at Penny Lane Realty, praises the high-rise. “There are a lot of windows, you can make apartments or a hotel.” It is necessary to change the glazing, install engineering communications into the former offices of officials, the re-equipment will not be particularly difficult. Experts interviewed by Forbes named this property among the most attractive for potential investors. It’s even clear who exactly might be interested in a high-rise building in the first place. The Kyiv Ploshchad group of Zarakh Iliev and God Nisanov, which manages the Ukraina Hotel, has experience in the reconstruction of high-rise buildings. The volume of investment can be $500-3500 per sq. m. m of total area. At the Radisson Royal Ukraine hotel, room prices start from $530 per night.

*ITAR-TASS*
Business center "White House", Krasnopresnenskaya embankment, 2

What can be done: offices and hotels

Cost per square meter of office in this area: $9600 (Russian Research Group)

It will be convenient to drive up to the White House abandoned by the government: it is located on a large plot of land, there is a place to park your car. The building was built slowly, in Soviet style, over 14 years, and was ready in 1979. “The White House is relatively new,” says Artem Tsogoev, project manager at Trinfico Property Management. “Yes, they fired at it from tanks, but the structure survived.” Reconstruction can cost $500-1500 per sq. m. m. It is natural to open a business center on the first floors, a hotel on the last floors, and give the middle ones to apartments, Tsogoev sums up.

*Elena Sablina for Forbes*
Offices in the Ministry of Defense, Znamenka, 19

What can be done: offices

Cost per square meter of office in this area: $9600 (Russian Research Group)

“The famous “White House Number Two,” with its façade facing Arbat, “was built in the shape of the Pentagon, with a large courtyard,” says Konstantin Kovalev, managing partner of Blackwood. “And inside there are long corridors, a very inefficient arrangement.” According to Alexey Mogila, in buildings with an office-corridor system the yield of usable space is about 50% (in modern offices it can be 70% or 80%). The place of the military can be taken by tenants of office space - of course, if reconstruction is done and communications are updated.

*legion-media.ru*
FSB building: bricks from Bolshaya Lubyanka, 1

What can be done: demolish

The biggest difficulty for experts was the question of how the FSB building on Lubyanka could be used. Firstly, few people are familiar with the internal structure of this object. Secondly, it, like the Duma, is “deaf”, that is, it has many rooms without windows. “I would not undertake to look for an investor for this property,” says Alexey Mogila. “It’s best to just take it apart and make money by selling it brick by brick,” suggests Konstantin Kovalev. “And in its place, build another building that does not have such a dark history.”

Department store "State Duma", Okhotny Ryad, 1

Hotel "MFA", Smolenskaya-Sennaya Square

Business center "White House", Krasnopresnenskaya embankment, 2

Offices in the Ministry of Defense, Znamenka, 19

FSB building: bricks from Bolshaya Lubyanka, 1