For quite a long time, Moscow City, a huge development on the banks of the Moskva River, has been stuck at ground level. Construction on the lands allotted for the project was suspended.
The foundations laid produced the impression of ruins rather than new building work.
Muscovites predicted the same fate for the project as befell the Moscow Disneyland for which sculptor Zurab Tsereteli had been given a huge plot of land on the Moskva River flood plain near the Grebnoi (Rowing) Canal in the Kuntsevo area.
However, a couple of years ago, skyscrapers began springing up in Moscow City like mushrooms after the rain. Muscovites found a simple explanation for this: investors have come and brought the long-awaited “golden rain.” The Moscow City international business centre is the largest real estate investment project in Moscow and the whole of Russia. Its startup was delayed but now it is at its active construction stage.
Most facilities, with a total floor space of about 4mn sqm, are to be commissioned in 2009.
The Moscow authorities are enlarging the project, described now as a “Big City.” Its area will reach nearly 100 hectares, with 60 hectares to be given to the key project, and it will have some 135,000 inhabitants.
The Moscow City project cannot but strike the imagination of all those who are familiar with it. The ambitious project now under way on the Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment must place the Russian capital on a par with the well-known capitals of world business, such as Frankfurt am Main, London, New York and Tokyo. The Moscow authorities declared from the start that the vast business zone, which will incorporate offices, apartments and leisure space, will be the first of its kind in Russia and, probably, in the whole of Eastern Europe.
This ambitious project has a long history. In 1992, a City managing company was established to build and run the future business centre.
The site chosen for the project is really unique: it is the only place not far from Moscow’s historical centre where this large-scale project could be implemented. Formally, there was a vast industrial zone there with several residential neighbourhoods at its borders.
The municipal authorities worked hard to clean the area of all old structures, and now nothing reminds you of the past there.
The first stage of construction includes the underground part of the Park City multirole complex, with a Moscow metro junction, an office block on the Taras Shevchenko Embankment, a business centre and a water park.
The Bagration Tower has been operating for quite a long time now, and the Northern Tower and the Embankment Tower have been built.
Construction of the City of Cities Tower is to be finished by 2008. The Federation Tower, one of Moscow City’s most prominent structures, is nearing completion. Together with a spire, it will be over 500 metres high, higher than the tallest European skyscraper in Frankfurt am Main. In all, there will be 15 high-rises in Moscow City.
However, Moscow would not have been Moscow if the project had not had a landmark.
This is the Russia Tower, a unique building in the history of Russia and Russian architecture, and a present to the city and the whole of Russia, according to Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov.
The 612-metre tower will be a symbol of Russia striving for new heights, the mayor said.
The groundbreaking ceremony was held in mid-September, 2007. It was promised that the tower would be built within a short period of time – in 24 to 30 months.
Designed by famed British architect Norman Foster, it will be a triangular tapering structure without support pillars due to the use of fan-like supports at the sides of each of the tower’s three wings.
There is a huge three-floor atrium in the building’s foundation with shopping centres, an apartment hotel, a hotel and offices. There will be an observation deck and underground parking lots.
The tower will be linked to the central part of Moscow City by an underground passage.
In all, it will have nearly 500,000 sq m of floor space.
However, the Moscow authorities would not stop at that.
According to Luzhkov, the business centre will advance up the river. This will make Moscow an ultramodern city while preserving its historical identity. The Big City will stretch from the Moskva River to Zvenigorodskoye and Khoroshevskoye highways and occupy an area of nearly 1,000 hectares.
Moscow City’s housing block with apartments for 135,000 will total 8.6mn sq m in area, social facilities up to 8mn sqm, and utilities and production premises nearly 1mn sq m.
The overall area of all buildings and structures, including the Moscow International Business Centre, will be 17.5mn sq m. The most distinctive facilities of the Big City will be the Wedding Palace and the Water Park.
Moscow has invited the world’s best specialists to design and build the engineering and transport infrastructure for Moscow City. It will have cutting-edge power supply sources with trunk and distribution networks and auxiliary facilities, a power park, sub- stations, etc. The transport infrastructure is actively developing now and a section of the Third Transport Ring road has already been built.
A section of the Moscow metro and a connected mini-metro with stations and a junction will appear in the heart of the business centre.
A new high-speed Sheremetyevo- City transport system will link the City directly with the international airport bypassing Moscow streets. An efficient and safe freight delivery system by rail, motor and river transport is being set up.
No effort is spared to propel Moscow to a higher level of business. This means that the Russian capital may also claim the role of a leading global business centre one day.
