Quote:
Originally Posted by Grumpy
After all the numerous new residential towers built in the last decade is there still a shortage of this ??
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First of all, there are two markets in residential housing: upscale elite apartments for millionaires and mass-produced apartments for average joes. Both are in demand. An they are clearly different animals. Speaking of the first, quite a few have been built in recent 10 years, and more will be in the near future. But the second is perhaps even more important. We are talking of rebulding of ~ 40% of Moscow housing in the next decade or so. Almost all of the 5-story prefab concrete commiblocks built in 1960s are slated for demolition by 2011. They are to be replaced by modern apartment towers. After that, the time of 9 and 14 story commiblocks will come too. In the next 20-30 years there will be a lot of residential construction all over Moscow (and actually, for the same reason, most russian cities).
Some recent info on the demolition of 5-story commiblocks (in Russian).
http://realty.lenta.ru/news/2007/03/05/demolition/
The jist of it:
From 1995, 881 5-story commiblocks have been demolished, with total square area of 3 mln sq. meters (~30 mln sq. feet). By 2011, 3700 more of these buildings are planned to be demolished (total area 8.6 mln sq. meters) In 2006 less than half of the 104 buildings slated for demolition have been destroyed. Moscow government looks for an investor to accelerate the program, perhaps even finishing it ahead of scheduel.
After 5 story commiblocks are demolished, demolition of the 9 story ones will begin.
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Now, considering they have been demolishing on the order of 80 buldings annually, they will have to accelerate the rate of demolition by a factor of 6 (if you compare annually demolished areas), which IMO is unrealistic. After all, they are limited not by the rate at which they can demolish, but by the rate of construction of new, better quality housing. I fail to see how the rate of construction can be suddenly stepped up by factor of 6.