Esplanada, emblem of Bucharest?

Works on the Esplanada real estate project could start next spring once the contract with the multinational company Trigranit, the developer of the project has been signed, delegate minister for public works Laszlo Borbely says. “We are at that stage when we will have a financial consultant and a legal consultant within one week. We discussed the project with Bucharest City Hall, because we could not have run the Esplanada project without them, and a joint team is discussing and negotiating,” Borbely said. He added that according to the schedule, all the procedures needed to be finalised by March 2006, after which date the project would be turned over to the City Hall that will see to this construction. “We want to have a district that is emblematic for Bucharest. We are in talks to include the National Library building in the project, though we will probably need to hold a new tender for it,” Borbely stated, who attended the conference unveiling the programme to develop Bucharest. Trigranit won the tender for the public-private partnership project and will participate in the funding of the works to the tune of 800 million euros. The company officials expect works to take some five to seven years to complete. The Esplanada complex will be a 700,000 square metre development and will include office space, commercial space and residential space, but will also have a cultural component in form of museums and leisure areas. The plot of land where the project will be developed stands at over 107,000 square metres, is held by the Transport Ministry and is bordered by the following streets: Unirii, Octavian Goga, Nerva Traian and Mircea Voda. ZF