Hungarian company TriGranit shall not take part in the tender for construction of the Millennium City Center in Podgorica, but it will submit a bid for the long-term lease of Velika Plaža in Ulcinj, George Bobvos, TriGranit’s Director for Montenegro and Serbia says.
He added that TriGranit was not satisfied with terms in the tender for construction of the Millennium City Center.
Bobvos said the tender issued was for a parcel of land too small for the buildings his company hoped to build. He also stated that the 1000 euros per square meter land price is four times higher than in Ljubljana, Slovenia, where a similar center is being built.
“With such a high land price, the rental fees would have to be two or three times higher than usual, which is quite unrealistic. To that end, under such terms, TriGranit cannot make the project we offered to Montenegro – to the national government and Podgorica,” Bobvos told the media.
TriGranit had hoped to construct a conference center, a mall and a four-star hotel on the site which is located on the banks of the Morača River, adjacent to the Millennium Bridge in Podgorica.
Bobvos said that TriGranit would be interested in re-examining the Millennium City Center project if the terms of the tender are changed.
TriGranit is, however, very interested in Velika Plaža. The available site is on the southern most part of Montenegro’s coast, south of Ulcinj and close to the Albanian border.
The Bojana River, which drains from Lake Skadar and is navigable in its entirety, terminates on the property, which includes 13 kilometers of 60 – 100 meter wide beaches.
Sixty percent of the 1450-hectare site is owned by the government, which intends to, “enter into at long-term lease agreement for Velika Plaža, offering the right to develop and manage a unique up-scale market resort with a range of leisure and recreational facilities.”
According to the tender, “the intention of the Government is to provide adequate and comprehensive development of this destination into a unique, multifunctional upscale tourism resort, offering a range of leisure activities in the manner which is conceptually, aesthetically, functionally and environmentally in harmony with the beauty of the natural surrounding and environmental richness of the site.”
“We shall present a bid for the whole system, since we think that it should be an undivided area because of the architecture, logistics, infrastructure and we shall take part in the tender,” Bobvos said, adding that preliminary qualifications for bids was good, as is the concept itself.
According to TriGranit’s analysis, total investments for what it envisages for Velika Plaža would range between six and seven billion euros. Bobvos added that it will take up to 15 years to bring the project to fruition.
Initial expressions of interest for Velika Plaža must be made to the Montenegro government on or before June 16, 2008.