Once the scene of the Solidarity strikes which broke the back of communism, a new investment seeks to turn Poland's Gdansk shipyards into Eastern Europe's answer to the London docklands.
Venture capital funds backed by the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) are looking to draw $1.5 billion in investment to create some 700,000 square metres (7.5 million square feet) of hotel, office and residential buildings in the former shipyard.
Gdansk has had a bumpy ride through Poland's transition from communism, and the development will replace most of the now redundant site where Nobel peace prize winner Lech Walesa once rallied workers to stand up against the communist government.
"We want to compete with projects like Haffenstadt in Hamburg or ... the docklands in London -- the commercialisation of large industrial terrain, a complete change in character," said project chief Janusz Lipinski.
Five years after buying the land, Lipinski's company Synergia finally obtained a change in zoning last month that would make possible the project, called "Young Gdansk" in Polish. He said construction should begin in early 2006.
But first Lipinski and his U.S. backers have to find foreign investors. He says the yards' history does much of the marketing itself.
"Nobody has a problem with identifying where we're talking about when we discuss the Gdansk shipyards, Solidarity and Lech Walesa," he said. The development will retain the current museum and UNESCO-listed world heritage sites within the yards.
NEW SYMBOLS, NEW START
The Gdansk shipyard's historic past as the birthplace of the first free trade union behind the Iron Curtain did little to protect it from free market competition once Walesa's Solidarity won Poland democracy in 1989.
The shipyard was declared bankrupt in the mid-1990s and, after a buyout by a rival Polish yard, now operates on a fraction of its original site -- an area between the city's historic old town and the Baltic Sea interwoven by channels.
The investment, which organisers say will create an estimated 15,000 jobs in a city with 12 percent unemployment, has the blessing of the yard's most famous son.
"It is symbolic that in this place, where our freedom came into being, a new, vibrant city will be born. In this era of technology, we need such symbols," Walesa told Reuters.
Local politicians are also pushing for the project, which would be the country's biggest real-estate makeover ever, trying to sweeten the deal by luring financing from the European Union, which Poland joined last May.
"This investment is a chance for a new stage of development of the city. European Union funding should also be available," said Janusz Lewandowski, a centrist politician from Gdansk who was elected to the European Parliament this year.
"The important thing is that in Gdansk this revitalisation is born of a combination of both history and our future hopes."
The project's organisers are betting that Poland -- the fastest growing post-communist state over the last 15 years -- will grow roughly 5 percent per year over the medium-term.
Growing stability and EU entry have also led to a flood of interest from European and U.S.-based real estate funds and, as the market in Warsaw fills up, the funds have widened the search for investment destinations.
Many larger developments in Polish cities have been bogged down by delays in the country's deeply-politicised state administration, an inefficient remnant of the communist era.
But after securing the zoning approval and with the international credibility of OPIC, a Washington-based government agency which aids U.S. small business investment in developing economies, Lipinski is optimistic.
"This is such a big project that its success depends on the investment climate in Poland and Europe as a whole, and not these sort of small, local problems any more," he said.
|