Five billion Euro eco-artery for Dambovita tabled

Bucharest’s Dambovita river from Parcul Izvor to Lacul Morii river could be witness to a green artery in an ambitious ten-year project from a consortium of local and international developers.

November 2009 - From the Print Edition

The 1,000 hectare riverside plans include an eco-park and technology museum around the ramshackle Lacul Morii.
Another park near the Parliament Palace could include an open air exhibition area and sport courts.
The zone currently contains developer River Invest’s Sema Parc project, which includes offices and a plan for malls and housing, as well as student dormitories, the city’s botanical gardens and run-down industrial platforms.
The developer of the ECO Bucuresti 2015 project is the architecture company Space Syntax in partnership with the German Research Institute and NGOs. The consortium is still looking for financing to start works on the project, which could cost up to five billion Euro.
“We could raise this money in five years or even sooner and then we can start the construction, which will last another five years,” Esenghul Abdul, the director of Space Syntax told The Diplomat.
One obstacle is that most of the land plots targeted by the project are private property and the developers will have to convince the owners to sell them at lower prices.
“Most of the land plots are owned by speculators who want to sell,” says Abdul, “not by people who live there and, considering the low number of transactions on the real estate market, I think they will be willing to negotiate.”