Home in the clouds
The Polish residential market is becoming increasingly mature and developers have built a wide range of housing projects around the country: from budget and studio apartments, to loft-style luxury abodes. Now a number of developers are focusing on luxury apartments housed within city-center skyscrapers, with Warsaw's Złota 44, Sea Towers in Gdynia and Sky Tower in Wrocław the prime examples.
Crowning achievement
An eagle wearing a crown - that's the image the developers of a residential building planned at ul. Złota 44 in the center of Warsaw are aiming for. The 192-meter high tower is designed to evince Warsaw's greatness and dignity, reaffirming the city's vitality after so many catastrophes and wars.
Designed by Daniel Libeskind and developed by Orco Property Group, the Złota 44 tower will contain 251 luxury apartments on 54 floors. It will have a large lobby, a recreational floor housing a 25-meter long swimming pool and a parking lot for 388 cars. However, it is not meant to serve exclusively domestic purposes - it is intended to be a new Varsovian landmark.
"Złota 44 is supposed to bring fame to the city, underline its value. This is a building that reflects Warsaw's aspirations, an exceptional building, which has been created by Warsaw's history and its perspectives, a building thanks to which a breakthrough will come. In the most important cities buildings with fascinating designs will be erected," says Libeskind.
Coastal creation
Another spectacular development is Invest Komfort's Sea Towers in Gdynia, whose many-storeyed towers will house luxury apartments. Located within a few hundred meters of Gdynia's city center and situated directly on the waterfront, Sea Towers could set a new standard for the city's urban development.
This two-tower, 138m-tall structure was designed by an architectural studio from Vienna. The taller tower will consist of 36 floors and the shorter will have 28 floors. Construction work, which has already begun, is scheduled to be completed in December 2008.
Wrocław tops out
It is Wrocław, however, that will be home to the tallest apartment tower in Poland. Developed by LC Corp and located in the heart of the city on ul. Powstańców Śląskich, the Sky Tower complex will comprise six towers, the tallest of which will stand at 200 meters. This development will have 700 apartments, ranging from 65 sqm to over 200 sqm, and the overall investment will require $400 (zł.1,156) million. Its completion date has been scheduled for the second half of 2010.
Piotr Fokczyński, chief architect and director of the department of architecture and construction at Wrocław's City Hall, said that the spatial-development plan for the vicinity of ul. Powstańców Śląskich included the erection of tall buildings, since the City Hall's aim is to give the area a more metropolitan feel.
"We were aware that the decisive factor is not the conditions written in the spatial-development plan, but things such as the price of the plot. We decided to go ahead, hoping that developers would want to aim upwards," said Fokczyński.
Watch your wallet
With such residences, the issue of pricing needs to be weighed alongside the standard of luxury.
Prices at Złota 44 range from zł.23,400 per sqm for apartments on lower floors, up to zł.34,710 per sqm for the 370-sqm penthouse on the top floor; prices for apartments in Gdynia's Sea Towers are lower, ranging from zł.8,000 per sqm to zł.24,000 per sqm.
Due to the fact that the Sky Tower development has not yet received a building permit, the building's investor, LC Corp, plans to begin sales of its apartment at the beginning of spring 2007, by which time all administrative decisions should be made. The price of apartments is not yet known, but Artur Wiza from LC Corp said that the development will consist of both luxury and more moderately-priced apartments.
Market interest
Hanna Baranowska, the deputy director of marketing at Invest Komfort, said that 50 percent of Sea Towers' apartments have already been sold and foreigners comprise only one percent of its buyers.
"Our apartments are especially popular among Polish citizens, those who live in Poland or outside the country," said Baranowska. "Those customers are interested in such a purchase because the Sea Towers can be used by them for a weekend or holiday stay."
Despite the fact that Orco's sales offer for its Złota 44 development was announced just three weeks ago, the investor is satisfied with its clients' response.
"We have noted considerable interest in the apartments at Złota 44. Representatives at our newly opened Złota 44 sales office on ul. Chmielna are very busy talking to prospective clients. Such spectacular and unique projects as Złota generate considerable interest, and so far we have sold 85 apartments. This is a very good result considering we just opened sales on November 13," said Jean-Claude Moustacakis, Orco's Złota 44 project director.
Moustacakis also added that 90 percent of apartment purchases so far have been made by Poles.
Trend for the future?
These new developments could soon begin a new direction on the residential market. These three projects, in particular, will be a test of market interest and, depending on the results, Poland could soon see a number of similar projects.
"In my opinion it is not a trend yet. Tall office buildings in Warsaw were constructed earlier because of the price of the plots. Plot prices are high and developers want to condense a larger number of apartments into a relatively smaller area. It is a matter of economy rather than architectural conditions," said Fokczyński.
