A new hotel complex will appear in Vitebsk

A private investor plans to create a modern hotel complex on the site of a disused building at Komsomolskaya Street, 28 in the regional center. The building, which has the status of a historical and cultural value, was sold on December 30 as a result of an auction at the "Vitebskoblimushchestvo" fund. This may become a trend: city authorities are trying to attract private initiative to preserve cultural heritage, having put up a whole group of such buildings for auction for the first time.

The former three-story residential building on Komsomolskaya Street with a total area of almost 854 sq. m was put up for auction with a starting price of 4.4 billion rubles. The auction was declared invalid because only one participant showed interest in the property. He agreed to purchase the disused building at the starting price increased by 5%, meaning he will have to pay over 4.6 billion rubles. As Gennady Agafonov, a representative of the buyer, told "Vitebskiye Vesti," the new owner plans to create a modern hotel complex on the basis of the facility. In addition to its own resources, it is planned to attract funds from a Russian investor for the project implementation. At the same time, during the reconstruction, the owner intends to preserve the architectural individuality of the building, paying tribute to traditions, and to incorporate features of modern architecture into its appearance.

In addition, attempts will continue to attract investors through auctions to non-residential buildings at Kalinin Street, 20 (area 177.8 sq. m, starting price over 2.2 billion rubles) and on Smolenskaya Square (325.9 sq. m, over 2.8 billion rubles), which also have historical and cultural value. An auction for the sale of the former metallurgists' club building on Engels Street (area almost 2.5 thousand sq. m, starting price about 6.9 billion rubles), which is an architectural monument, is scheduled for the beginning of February for the first time. In addition, the city authorities decided not to demolish the notable building with a rich history on Chernyakhovsky Avenue (former pilots' club) and offered private investors to breathe new life into it, putting the object up for auction also at the beginning of February with a starting price of over 2 billion rubles.

The auction is organized by the Vitebsk Regional Property Fund, for which the pre-New Year real estate sales turned out to be very successful. Almost a dozen properties were sold in the third decade of December. Among them is the former building of the music school in the urban settlement of Lyntupy, which may become part of a cultural and recreational complex based on the former Bishevskikh estate, being created here by a Belarusian-Russian tandem of investors. New owners intend to reconstruct the former rural club buildings in the villages of Devino and Yurtsevo, Orsha District, into housing. Prudiniki OJSC purchased a complex of buildings with a total area of almost 3.9 thousand sq. m of former warehouses of a military town in the Verkhnedvinsk district, which it plans to use for agricultural production.

In 2015, the fund sold 76 properties at auctions for almost 19 billion rubles, which in actual prices is about 10% higher than the result of 2014. The area of unused buildings has decreased by more than 55 thousand sq. m since the beginning of last year.

Sergey Antonov, Vitebskiye Vesti.