Much ado about Arctica Hotel

Local Murmansk authorities have been fussing around the Arctica hotel for over five years. It started with fire security conditions that implied closing down the upper floors of the hotel. Later on, the city administration as a major shareholder sold a half of the shares to Azimuth Hotels Company that promised to turn Arctica into a world-class hotel and a business centre of an A-class. City Administration anyway remained an owner of the building.

The reconstruction works were supposed to be done by the specialists of Azimuth hotels in cooperation with Russian and British architecture agencies.

The Azimuth Company manages the biggest hotel network of business hotels providing accommodation in Saint Petersburg, Samara, Ufa, Kostroma, Astrakhan, Vladivostok, Chelyabinsk and Chita.

Azimuthotels.ru says: “Hotel Arctica in Murmansk is currently closed for renovation, after which Arctica will become a multifunctional city center, meeting the top contemporary standards.”

The renovation works started and were almost nipped in the bud. The head of the company, Mr. Gendelsman, considers this failure as an aftermath of a crisis, yet the newly-elected Mayor of Murmansk – Mr. Subbotin finds this obstacle as a policy of the investors’. Yesterday, the Parties held a second meeting to discuss the future of the Murmansk symbol, where Mr. Subbotin presented Azimuth with an ultimatum threatening the latter with taking Arctica back to the city. Another option to follow is an extra investor that may help to complete the works. Third meeting that is to take place on 10th of July expects clear and concrete plans to finalize the hotel renovation. Besides, the municipality is to carry out a financial audit of the expenses that Azimuth has had so far on the hotel works. The opinions differ as far as some specialists consider the restitution of the hotel to municipality as very cumbersome when it comes to legislation issues, some think that a municipal budget cannot afford the renovation works of the huge hotel. Noteworthy, that StatoilHydro was recently proposed to participate in the hotel reconstruction process.

Arctica Hotel is the highest building in the city of Murmansk (and beyond the Polar Circle) of up to 16 floors and 635 rooms (for 1030 people) for accomodation.

Source: www.barentsnova.com