KDT gets crucial plot on Defilad

The City Council recently gave a 3,500-sqm plot on the corner of ul. Marszałkowska and ul. Świętokszyska, over the Centrum Metro station, to Kupieckie Domy Towarowe (KDT).

KDT, the company that constructed and operates the existing trading hall on Plac Defilad, received the plot, worth approximately zł.50 million, without a tender for 30 years and plans to construct a six-storey department store.

The councilors officially say they decided to give the plot to KDT in order to support domestic entrepreneurs, but some of them have admitted that with local elections on the horizon they don't want to upset the merchants. Recently, traders attended a city-council session and promised to vote for the councilors in the fall.

Some analysts say the deal could fall apart as KDT might not be able to pay off the loan and the plot will have to be sold, as was the case with the Social Building Association (TBS), which was granted a plot in Bemowo. TBS went bankrupt and the city lost the plot.

Dariusz Potec rejects this. "Traders' contribution in the total value of the zł.100 million shopping center reaches 40 percent," he says. KDT plans to launch construction works in 2006. If it does run into difficulties, it could also decide to rent out part of the space, and with retail in high demand among tenants in the city center, KDT shouldn't find it difficult to find many tenants.

City Hall has leased the plot to KDT for a 30-year period but it might be difficult to regain it in the future. "In order to take it back the city would have to buy the building. I am sure City Hall will not have enough money," Piotr Ciompa, a Warsaw councilor, told Gazeta Wyborcza.