Guiding lines: Going to Work in the Suburbs
Floor space at Country Park (Class B+), one of the first and largest business centers on the outskirts of Moscow, built at the beginning of 2004, has been completely rented out. According to experts at C&W/S&R, demand for high quality office real estate in Moscow's suburbs comes from large Western or Russian companies wanting to reduce expenses on rent and tenants in business parks are mainly international companies who use the space for their head offices. For example, BMW rents a 300-sq.m area for its head office at Country Park, as does Porsche and Volvo Truck (2100 sq.m).
The trend for the future is the resettlement of Muscovites from the city and as a consequence, the complex development of territories and the creation of infrastructure has become a reference point for developers engaged in commercial real estate. In the suburbs closest to Moscow a boom in office construction has already begun.
According to Prime City Properties, the majority of projects outside the MKAD are concentrated around several districts capable of becoming new business areas. The important component they must possess is the presence of infrastructure, i.e. shopping and entertainment, hotels, etc, which make these areas suitable not only for work, but also for leisure.
The first of such clusters of commercial real estate can be found on the Leningradskoye shosse/MKAD intersection, and was formed under the influence of Sheremetyevo International Airport and the Myakininskoi region. According to experts from Cushman & Wakefield/Stiles & Riabokobylko (C&W/S&R), one of the main tendencies in the development of office real estate in the regions is the construction of business parks, which is essentially a new kind of commercial real estate for Russia. World experience testifies, that this format is the most in demand in areas outside megacities where land is cheaper and where there is the opportunity to create not only office areas, but also buildings for various other purposes - from industrial to residential. Already on the outskirts of Moscow is the Greenwood class A business park (130,000 sq.m), a project by Coalco and the Moscow consulting center, located at the 71st km of the MKAD between Leningradskoye and Volokolamskoye shosse. The project comprises a complex of 13 office buildings, hotels, apartments and entertainment facilities. In addition, the Country Park complex (first stage - 18,000 sq.m) at Khimki is in the process of being built by communications company Race Communications. The infrastructure of the business park will include a restaurant, a beauty salon, a cafe, warehousing areas, a marina, and a large recreational territory. Construction of a hotel and congress hall is also planned. Platzdarm Development's project, Khimki-City, will represent a type of city in a city and will have not only B+ office buildings (almost 100,000 sq.m), but also residential buildings, a hotel with 250 rooms, a shopping area, a recreational zone and a yacht club. Meanwhile A-class Khimki Business Park, measuring 100,000 sq.m, is a project of IKEA, and in addition to office buildings will have two hotels with 375 and 250 rooms respectively, an apart-hotel with 250 rooms, a shopping center, a congress hall and a fitness center.
Important when forming a business park is the adequate provision of parking areas. In the West offices located outside the city, which employees can reach by car are very, very common. And Russia is following suit. Country Park has a five-storey car park with 260 spaces, and guarantees one space per 50 sq.m. The number of spaces at Greenwood is even greater, with one space provided for every 40 sq.m of rented floor space. In comparison, business centers in the center of Moscow of the same class have two and even three times less parking spaces. And already at the delivery stage of out-of-city business parks realtors inform potential clients that there will be a shuttle bus service to the nearest metro station.
Muscovites have got used to working in the city center, and don't want to travel far from its epicenter. The experience of companies that have relocated their offices from the center to a business park located beyond the Third Ring Road has shown that during relocation 20-30% of employees leave the company. But the trend for large companies to decentralize their offices to peripheral areas of Moscow (for example, Ford and DHL plan to rent premises at Khimki Business Park) shows that Muscovites will have to change their habits.
It may seem that a company cares first and foremost about its business interests when relocating to a cheaper office far from the city center but everybody will have noticed how the traffic flows much quicker out of the city center during rush hour. Your trip to an office outside the city center will appear shorter, and that's the true picture that employees in the West are already benefiting from.