"Zalais Nams," or the Green House, on Dzirnavu Street in downtown,
has already assumed its general, neo-art nouveau shape, and one
sample flat has been furnished with brightly colored modern art and
rich brown leather furniture.
Signs hanging from the scaffolding advertise in English and Latvian
that the new building will be "prestigious."
As Sol Bukingolts, real estate developer and chief executive officer
of InterSource/InvestaSource, puts it, "This is for people who do not
spit from the third-floor window."
And alongside the snob value, the Green House will offer the
conspicuous consumer - or "the educated consumer," as Bukingolts
likes to say - conveniences currently unheard of in Riga.
Finnish double glass windows have been carefully calibrated to block
out the sound on the street below. The kitchen has been decked out
with General Electric appliances. There's an elevator up from the
underground parking. There's a gym.
A major investment
An InterSource/InvestaSourceofficial said the company had put a
"multimillion" dollar investment into the building at 37 Dzirnavu
St., not far from the corner of Valdemara Street. Bukingolts added
that he has received substantial support from Latvian and
international banks.
Apartment owners will also buy a share in the building, but it won't be cheap.
Apartments range from 80 to 220 square meters, costing from $128,000
to $352,000 to buy.
When individuals buy apartments, they'll also be purchasing shares in
the building; unlike the flimsy cooperative contracts that exist in
many privatized buildings, the American style contract for the Green
House condos has been registered in the Land Book, which will make it
binding on generations of tenants.
"This building is for people who don't throw their cigarettes from
the fifth floor window," Bukingolts continued. "And it's for people
who know the meaning of the word 'equity.'"
He hopes that prospective buyers will see his apartments, which come
at about one-third of the price of comparable flats in Oslo or
Stockholm, as investments as well as living quarters.
"I think there's a market for it here," said Peter Morris, Baltic
director of the Ober Haus real estate group. Morris pointed to the
growth of a new Latvian financial elite ready to move into a European
lifestyle.
"You spend your life in a Soviet building that hasn't been taken care
of, and your neighbors are stealing light bulbs from hallways, and
enough is enough," Morris said.
"They say I want to live like the people I see in the soap operas on
TV," he said.
So far, Bukingolts says, only two of the six apartments he has
committed will be inhabited by Latvians. But he hopes that his
building marks the beginning of Riga's European future.
Praise from architects
Zalais Nams has its roots in Latvia's past. It was constructed from
the foundations up in the image of a decrepit 1908 art nouveau
building which once filled the space.
It's a rare piece of brand new construction in Riga, which has
primarily focused on renovating turn of the century landmarks. And
the project slipped in before a change in the laws would have
required it to win approval from the Latvian State Inspection for
Heritage Protection.
But the deputy director of the state inspection, Janis Lejnieks,
praised the Green House.
"It is placed on a street that was not so nice before," Lejnieks
said. And unlike the controversial Blackhead's House in Old Town
Riga, which was rebuilt from scratch in imitation of a 14th century
building, Zalais Nams does not slavishly imitate its predecessor.
Instead, he said, Zalais Nams "made some quotations from the art
nouveau style, and it succeeded."
While the asymmetrical facade and bay windows recall art nouveau, or
Jugendstil, the underground parking garage and the covered garden
behind the main building are right out of the 1990s, Lejnieks said.
Bukingolts is particularly proud of the glass pyramid that covers the
garden. He'll have a good view of it when he moves into his own
second floor, extra-large apartment in March.
"This building represents the country's growth," Bukingolts said. "It
represents our belief in the European future for people who live
here."
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