Dreams of grandeur for Moscow

AFP MOSCOW

A world-class business center to rival Paris' La Defense, a theme park to compete with Disneyland, a huge pedestrian area in the historic city center: Moscow's authorities have drawn up a wish-list of grandiose urban projects but need investors to help foot the bill.

Foremost among their dreams of grandeur is a plan for a new high-tech city hall, awarded last week to a team of Russian architects after an international tender by Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov.

The $260 million project would see the construction of a massive 52-story building with four glass cylindrical towers, each topped with a helipad and containing winter gardens.

Construction is due to begin next year and will take two years, according to Moscow's Deputy Mayor Yosif Ordzhonikidze.

Once completed, the building's 230,000 square meters of space will be offered to the city authorities, with civil servants moving in, if all goes well, in 2006.

The new city hall would form the heart of an even larger enterprise known as Moscow-City, a huge business center located four kilometers (2.5 miles) from the Kremlin. The forbidding estimated cost of $10 billion will require a generous allocation of outside investment.

The project will offer 2.5 million square meters of office and recreational space, at least five hotels, an aquapark (already under construction) and a new highway linking the center to Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport.

"The center will not close after business hours but will stay alive 24 hours a day," Ordzhonikidze said.

As originally conceived seven years ago, the dreamed-of grandeur was even grander, with state-of-the-art apartments, skyscrapers and a tower intended to reach the height of 600 meters (1,970 feet), to be the world's highest.

Private investors were not impressed, however, and the authorities were forced to rein in their ambitions.

Another project, dubbed the "Park of Wonders," a theme park adorned with fairy-tale figures and mythical themes, will be part of a major urban development scheme taking up 400 hectares (1,000 acres) of land west of Moscow by 2015 and designed to provide the city's children with leisure centers and sports clubs, Ordzhonikidze said.

Two investor groups, one European and one South African, have expressed an interest in the park which will be run by controversial sculptor Zurab Tsereteli, a close friend of Mayor Luzhkov.

In yet another bid to spice up the city's tourist attractions, the authorities have drawn up a plan for a great pedestrian zone that would take visitors through Moscow's historical streets and lanes.

Massive renovation works and construction of new hotels are also planned for this "golden ring of tourism."

However, here too, investor money has been slow in coming, even though the project is scheduled to be completed by 2010.

The total cost of the city hall's ventures — including a Formula One racecourse, revamping of the Luzhniki sports complex and restoration of numerous royal palaces and residences — amount to a staggering $60 billion to 70 billion.