Hungary’s real estate developer TriGranit has announced a mammoth EUR 1.5 billion, five-year project in Slovakia on Tuesday. Metropolis, Europe’s number one entertainment, commercial and conference centre is to be built at the borders of Bratislava on gross buildable area of over 1.2-million square metres.

TriGranit’s newest planned development is on a 30-hectare site south of Bratislava, located at the intersection of the D2 and D4 highways that lead to Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest and Prague. There are four international airports within 220 kilometers with 40 million passengers yearly, not to mention the tourists passing by on the high- and railways.

"This project will be the new destination of the region, dramatically increasing Slovakia’s tourism spend and number of visitors," TriGranit said in a statement on Tuesday.

Metropolis as currently planned is a multifunctional development - gross buildable area will be more than 1.2 million sqm - where one will find retail, leisure, Aqua Park, golf, hotels, casinos, cultural and congress facilities.

Construction works are scheduled to start at the end of 2010 and be completed in five years.

The project has several planned phases: in the first one the shopping centre, the aqua park and the leisure centre with Adventure Park, three hotels and a US style casino with related amenities. The estimated completion date for the first phase is 2012.

Later phases will comprise of the conference facilities, golf courses, further casinos and luxury apartments, as well.

The 29 million people in the 220-kilometer catchment area represent the main target group for Metropolis.

The EUR 1.5 bn investment will create more than 10,000 new job opportunities in its construction phase, which will last almost five years. The facility is to generate some EUR 600 million in taxes for Slovakia annually. A total of five to six million tourists are expected to roam Metropolis every year, Simon Bayley, TriGranit’s development director, told a press conference in Bratislava.

Harrah’s Entertainment Inc. - one of the operators planned for the complex - is the largest gaming entertainment company in the world. Harrah’s operates 54 casinos, hotels, convention and conference centres and golf courses on four different continents, just to mention the world famous Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada, or the Emerald Casino Resort in South Africa.

Bayley said the project is jointly financed by TriGranit and Harrah, but he did not wish to go into details, MTI reported.

TriGranit has committed itself to Slovakia’s real estate market for more than a decade now; it is the flagship country of the company. TriGranit’s first foreign development was realized in Slovakia in 2000. After several successful Hungarian projects the Polus Center, Bratislava was the company’s first foreign development. With this project TriGranit was a pioneer, because this was the Slovak capital’s first American style commercial and entertainment centre. It was followed by the opening of Millennium Towers I, and II office towers - in 2001 and 2003 - what again fulfilled already the existing market demands. These were Bratislava’s first "A" class office buildings.

On the summer of 2008 another class "A" office tower was opened in the capital. The first phase of Lakeside Park offers more than 25,000 sqm office space and 500 parking spaces for rent, as part of the Lakeside Park complex. As a result of more than 200,000 sqm developments Bratislava - Nové Mesto became Bratislava’s new office center, attracting several other real estate developers and investors.

About TriGranit

TriGranit is a fully integrated real estate investment, development and management company. With operations in 7 countries in Central and Eastern Europe, a large portfolio of completed trophy assets, and a pipeline of over Euro 4 billion of major mixed-use developments, as well as a number of public private partnership (PPP) investments, TriGranit is well positioned to participate in the expanding real estate markets.

Source: www.portfolio.hu

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