Dmitry Medvedev and Sergey Sobyanin visit the Comcity office park in New Moscow

Today, the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev, and the Mayor of Moscow, Sergey Sobyanin, visited Comcity, New Moscow’s flagship development project.  The newly-opened Class A office park is hailed as one of the most innovative office developments in Moscow.
 
The Comcity office park represents a new concept in the commercial real estate market in Russia. The park is situated on Kiev Motorway near Moscow’s ring road and 350 metres away from the Rumyantsevo metro station. Comcity is a self-sufficient “city within a city”, that will offer a new type of environment, not just for successful work, but also for employees’ personal development as well as addressing residential and leisure needs: it will boast high-quality office space, parking, relaxation zones, cafés and restaurants, a fitness centre including a spa zone, a swimming pool, and playgrounds as well as a kindergarten and healthcare facility.
 
Vladimir Zhidkin, Head of the City of Moscow’s New Municipal District Development Department, said: “The opening of the Comcity office park is a major step as part of the development of Moscow’s newest districts. This is Moscow’s first business park of such scale and quality. The 40,000 new jobs that the office park brings are a major contribution to the social and economic development of New Moscow.”
 
Phase One of the Comcity project (also called Alfa) comprises 107,500 sq m of office space and 7,400 sq m of retail space in four buildings with five above-ground floors and two underground floors. PPF Real Estate Russia, the developer and project manager behind Comcity, invested EUR 270 million in the development of the first phase.
 
Tomáš Lastovka, Development Director of PPF Real Estate Russia, said: “Comcity is an innovative project intended to attract people and investment to New Moscow. Developing the complex we used the latest green technology: facades with better thermal properties and light permeability, chilled beams instead of normal fan coil units, cooling reservoirs, the use of “grey water”, and energy-saving lifts.”
 
Almost 80% of the space in Comcity’s first phase has been leased, well above the market average. Rostelekom, Russia’s national telecommunications operator and one of Europe’s largest telecommunications companies, has leased 58,500 sq m in Comcity, and Sistematika, a leading Russian IT solutions provider, has leased 17,400 sq m. Negotiations with another possible tenant, a major international IT company are in progress.
 
Tenants, who have chosen to move to Comcity, primarily cited the need to consolidate their offices, leasing large and efficient office space at good rates and with good transport accessibility, which is one of the key benefits of Comcity.
 
The development of the office park is now entering the next phase. The entire park will consist of twelve low-rise buildings with total office space of 430,000 sq m over a total of 45 hectares. The architectural design comes courtesy of the Czech studio, Cigler Marani Architects, which has experience in designing several European business parks. The general contractor is Renaissance Construction, the management company is RD Management, and the marketing and leasing consultant is Jones Lang LaSalle.
 
The Comcity office park is designed to fulfil the requirements of the LEED Gold certificate and the certification process is currently underway. The LEED system includes several categories in which to assess green technology employed and sustainable development aspects of the project (such as energy and water utilisation, layout, quality of air in the rooms etc.). In effect, both the development and the subsequent use of the buildings exert minimum impact on the environment and on human health. In addition, over the lifecycle of the building, the consumption of energy and material resources will decrease, as the internal environment of the buildings becomes more comfortable.
 
Comcity office park development facts and figures

• Duration of Phase 1 development – 18 months;

• Almost 100,000 m3 of concrete poured;

• Approximately 45,000 m2 of glazed facades;

• 8 gas-fired and 2 electrical boiler rooms;

• Ventilation chambers – 20 on the roof, 5 in the retail zone;

• 17 coolers;

• 13 diesel generators;

• Cooling accumulators – 4 units with a total volume of 1,160 m3.