Guiding Lines: The Dog Wags Its Tail

Markets may differ but tricks used by public relations experts are the same. A project is launched on the Web, media outlets spread the news around, but as soon as on the following day the authors of the project begin to doubt whether their choice of location in the western part of the city is correct and maybe its worth moving eastwards, after all. Such phenomena were described as far back as in the early 1990s by the authors of a U.S. textbook titled “A Journalist’s Guide to Public Opinion”. The Guide provides social scientists working for political leaders with tips on how to carry out public opinion polls so as to achieve a desired result.

Moscow’s prime office market has not seen anything extraordinary so far. However, office real estate promoters like to blow up ordinary events and generate public excitement over certain buildings. Messages pouring into the editorial office’s mail-box have to be examined more and more thoroughly each morning, as the increasingly large number of them are but announcements whose authors clearly overrate certain ideas and projects. Perhaps, such is the mode of operation practiced by certain public relations people employed by building companies. Or else, unlike the characters in the above-mentioned film, in truth those experts are not as keen on their job as to be inspired by the products they promote.

Apparently, the same sad fate has befallen the campaign to promote business parks. PR-experts have failed to devise any smart techniques to popularize that office format. Each new project, announced in the media, such as Greenwood, IKEA Business Park, Western Gate or Rezidentsiya, is assigned a role far greater than what they could justly claim in normal working conditions. Such announcements create an impression that the said format is the only solution for would-be tenants seeking comfortable conditions and low rents (Of course, nobody questions comfort as such at comparatively low rental rates, available at professional business parks).

Of late, three respected companies simultaneously issued public statements extolling the business park concept. Perhaps, that was only a coincidence. The “news” spread immediately, having been promptly published on a specialized Website. Headlines emerged in the papers. On the following day it no longer looked as a mere coincidence, rather as the revived interest of market operators to the format that had been discovered by Moscow as early as six years ago.

In the opinion of the authors of market surveys, which were attached to the statements and focused, of course, on the new business park projects, as many as 60 percent of offices are already operating outside the Garden Ring. Sounds unbelievable. After all, in terms of high-quality office space rated as class A and B, even all the commercial zones outside the city center taken together still have not reached such volumes. The confirmation to that is available in any quarterly report by major real estate analysts and consultants.

Moreover, business parks promoters now present them as a new model on the market. An informed reader cannot help wondering: “Then, where are those good old models, introduced by developers three, four or even five years ago? And where in Moscow is there a business park in operation to be found, which could give an idea of a share of office properties available outside the Garden Ring it accounts for?”

Perhaps, the only business park project finalized and put into operation in the city is Krylatskiye Kholmy. All other projects are yet to be completed, or are still on the drawing boards and will take years to build. Or, those are projects, which hardly meet the criteria of business parks. Among those in the first group is, undoubtedly, a project under development in Nagatino, on the site of the ZiL plant. The second group comprises Greenwood, Setun Hills, Dubrovka Plaza, Troi Business Park, IKEA Business Park, Rezidentsiya and Western Gate. As to Duks, West Bridge, Aurora Business Park or Legion I, those are merely large complexes of office buildings, according to international consultants.

To begin with, it is necessary to define a business park. A business park comprises a number office properties of varying height and class, run by a single operator, with a single engineering system and a developed network of public amenities, comprised of restaurants, cafes, hair dresser’s, sports facilities and even hotels. The entire project occupies a site of at least 10 to 16 hectares. Furthermore, business parks are by no means centrally located, rather on the outskirts. Vizavi Company, for example, is reasonable enough not to present its masterpieces as class A or B business parks. Although, they may as well claim that status given their impressive size.

Authors of the market surveys also report that the emergence of new parks will tell on office rents in Moscow, resulting in their decrease. The market will have to wait till 2009-2010 before several new projects are finalized. But it is hard to forecast whether a drop in rates will produce a sensation in such a distant future. Although it is possible to believe that rents at business parks near Sheremetievo and Khimki will indeed be lower than in Central Business District and along the Third Ring Road. At the same time, the city center will remain the city’s main commercial zone for years ahead. Top executives of international corporations will seek properties there, at any cost, while their administrative staff will stay in the suburbs.

Everyone pursues their own interest. While some build others promote. Moscow is not the first in these terms. Boisterous commercial capitals of Europe also have their promoters. But while all fields of business “out there” have long been divided between operators and office formats are clearly defined, the nascent domestic market still lacks clarity as to where a new tendency, indeed, is being formed and where, on the contrary, a non-existent tendency is only being imposed on the market.