Vita-Veritas to invest up to UAH 400 m more in completion of Kyiv Dream Town's second stage

Kyiv, July 7 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Kyiv-based Vita-Veritas Ltd., the investor of the construction of Kyiv's Dream Town shopping and entertainment center in 16 Obolonsky Avenue, will invest up to UAH 400 million more to complete the center's second stage whose commissioning is scheduled between the fourth quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of 2011, Dream Town co-owner Oleksandr Melamud said.

"We will invest about UAH 400 million more in the completion of the Dream Town center's second stage. I hope we will launch the construction next week or in a week. The ribbon-cutting ceremony of the second stage – the B section – is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2010 or the first quarter of 2011," he said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Wednesday.

According to Melamud, the second stage will include an entertainment zone, household goods stores, furniture and construction materials stores, a children clothes and toy supermarket, etc.

He admitted that the center's two sections, which are two separate units now, could be integrated into one facility in future, "for example, by a bridge."

Vita-Veritas Director Gari Korogodsky, in turn, said that the company had already invested UAH 750 million in the second stage of the center, which is now 57% ready, according to the technical inventory bureau.

Korogodsky confirmed a dispute between Vita-Veritas and CJSC Kyivmiskbud-1 Trust, which belongs to Kyiv-based Stolytsia Corporation, around the right of ownership of the Dream Town center's B section.

"Kyivmiskbud-1 Trust was selected as a construction firm, and despite the fact that we have fulfilled our commitments, they wanted to get the property which did not belong to them either under agreement or in all but name," he said.

"Last December, the trust registered the right of ownership of the B section at the technical inventory bureau referring to a ruling by Poltava's arbitration tribunal on a fake claim with the involvement of an individual. It was done […] retroactively, as the court ruling refers to the address (of the Dream Town center) which was assigned only six months later and to the splitting of the complex into the A section and the B section, which also happened six months later," Korogodsky added.

"We've reported about the falsification of the documents to the prosecutor's office and hope that they will investigate the case and those guilty of the falsification will be punished," he said.

He also said that the overall area under the center's two sections is up to seven hectares.

According to him, Vita-Veritas on July 6 "signed an agreement on the leasing of the land plot under the A section, and the land plot under the B section will be also leased out to our company."

As was earlier reported, deputies of Kyiv's Obolon district council decided at a meeting on July 1, 2010, to deprive CJSC Kyivmiskbud-1 Trust of the status of the construction firm of Kyiv's Dream Town shopping and entertainment center, justifying the decision by the fact that the firm had not fulfilled obligations to the city to build a number of social facilities and had stopped the construction of the center's B section.

Stolytsia Corporation President and Chairman of Kyivmiskbud-1 Trust's board Valentyn Isak said the district council's deputies had no right to break an agreement with the trust under which the company was selected to build the shopping and entertainment center, as this belongs to court jurisdiction.

Isak told Interfax-Ukraine that the corporation's lawyers were preparing documents for a court to rule the deputies' decision null and void.

The construction of the B section was suspended in connection with the litigation concerning the right of the ownership of the facility.

Isak noted that the technical inventory bureau issued a certificate of ownership of the second section both to the trust and Vita-Veritas. Earlier, the center's A section was legitimately transferred to Vita-Veritas.

The Dream Town's first stage with stores and leisure centers on an overall area of 80,000 square meters ( 40,000 square meters in leasing) was opened on October 22, 2009. It was announced then that the opening of the second stage (the B section) with an area of 82,000 square meters was scheduled for the second quarter of 2011.

The Stolytsia corporation was founded in 2003 on the basis of CJSC Kyivmiskbud-1 and CJSC Kyivmiskbud-1 Trust. Its core business is construction.

Vita-Veritas Ltd. operates on the market of commercial real estate and is engaged in the design, construction, operation and management of trading and commercial real estate.