Tashir to Build Housing Next Door to Gazprom

Samvel Karapetyan’s Tashir Group will build a 207,000-square-meter housing complex next door to Gazprom’s main office in Moscow after buying MSM-Invest, which was implementing the project.

Tashir purchased MSM-Invest from Avenue Group, which is owned by Mechanization MSM-1, Tashir vice president Vitaly Yefimkin told Vedomosti. An MSM-1 representative declined to comment, but according to Interfax’s SPARK database, Yefimkin is already CEO of MSM-Invest.

Karapetyan is one of the biggest developers in Russia. Forbes put Tashir in eighth place in its list of biggest commercial lessors for 2008, estimating the group’s revenue at $130 million.

MSM-Invest is building the housing complex on a 7.8-hectare plot near the Gazprom office, at the intersection of Ulitsa Nametkina and Khersonskaya Ulitsa. The company received permission from the Moscow city government in June 2008. Earlier, a large part of the plot was rented by Gazprom.

Konstantin Kovalev, managing partner at Blackwood, said that before the crisis, such a project, assuming that it got all the necessary documents, would have cost about $200 million. Today, it will run $50 million to $100 million.

Tashir has already given a name to the project — Gazoil-City. Yefimkin confirmed that construction has already begun. Along with the housing, the complex will include administrative and commercial facilities.

According to an order by the city government, the development must go into use by 2011. “By this time, we are expecting a revival on the housing market,” Yefimkin said. He added that the project is designed for employees of oil and gas companies located in the region. In addition to Gazprom, Novatek’s headquarters are not far away.

Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyankov said the monopoly isn’t planning any special purchases, but if executives plan to acquire housing in this development then that’s their personal business.

The cost of construction, including the acquisition price, is about $500 million, Yefimkin said.

•Tashir will partner with Mirax Group in the construction of a $400 million office and residential building next to Mirax Plaza on Kutuzovsky Prospekt, Kommersant reported Monday.

Tashir will get 55 percent of the development in exchange for financing the project next to Moskva-City, according to sources close to the deal. This is the first time that Mirax, which is focused on paying off its debts to Alfa Bank, has given up control of one of its projects to an outside investor.

The project will include a 16-floor building, occupying 130,000 square meters, which will be built next to the firm’s Mirax Plaza development.