Border is Conquered

The hardship that the Russian economy on the whole and the construction industry in particular have been going through in the last months made market participants look for anything but simple solutions. The ability to find such solutions was demonstrated by maintaining the pace of housing development in St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region, launching new projects and implementing announced plans with minimum amendments by major developers.

"In the beginning of this year construction companies almost didn't have opportunities to obtain credits against the background of decreasing volume of mortgage loans for consumers (because of the quick rates growth) as well as the decrease or cessation of funding of state-owned construction contracts," states Igor Kreslavskiy, Chairman of the Management Board at GC RosStroyInvest. Nevertheless, he emphasizes that the situation was never a dead end. "We were looking for reserves to progress as we understood the following: our main priority was to avoid stagnation of our business," continues Kreslavskiy. One of these solutions was reconceptualization of the "Peter the Great and Catherine the Great" housing complex, which was supposed to overtop (with 140 meter height) one of the city's tallest architectural dominants – "Prince Alexander Nevsky" housing complex, also built by FC RosStroyInvest. "As we would need special technical solutions to design buildings higher than 100 m, which would currently make such a project unprofitable, we reconsidered the number of floors in "Peter the Great" and "Catherine the Great" towers. But it didn't influence either the architectural entity of the housing complex appearance or the comfort of our future residents," comments Igor Kreslavskiy. It is worth reminding that GC RosStroyInvest consistently implements its "Best For Everyone" strategy, which is based on the previous concept of "Affordable Comfort". "We believe that affordability of comfort depends on the price and quality balance, convenient apartment layouts and well-developed infrastructure not just within walking distance, but in the boundaries of a housing complex," Igor Kreslavskiy explains.
In current circumstances, it is worth noting another element of affordability – reliability of a development company, that guarantees to commission its sites in time and with the declared quality. In this respect, the 2014/2015 construction season was no exception from the company's general rule: to commission sites before the declared deadline. In recent months, "Morning Star" and "House with Chimes" residential complexes were commissioned in St. Petersburg, while "Strawberry Meadow" low-rise housing complex will soon be ready in Vsevolozhsk. One of the largest St. Petersburg infrastructure objects will also be commissioned before the end of the year – the infectious diseases hospital in Polyustrovo, 100,000 sq.m in area, whose degree of readiness is evaluated at GC "RosStroyInvest" as "very high". At the same time, the holding company has started construction works on "Kremlin Stars" business class site, maintains the construction schedule at "Golden Domes" housing complex in Sertolovo and plans to launch the construction phase of "Peter the Great and Catherine the Great" complex. It is important to note that none of these projects had a typical design. "Every business, even the construction business, uses one principle – a successful solution should be replicated. Versatility helps to cut both construction costs and time. But all our projects are unique. We consciously agree to increase construction costs and to allow subsequent margin reduction, as we believe that new development projects in St. Petersburg, which is an architectural treasury of global importance, must continue the traditions of great architects," says Igor Kreslavskiy.