The construction of the innovative technological park ITown has started in Odesa. The total area of the facility will occupy 2.5 hectares. Investors are planning to invest $100 million in the construction of ITown. They hope that ITown will become the main IT cluster in the city.
The initiator and developer of the project is Prostranstvo corporate group. The company is engaged in the development, engineering, design, and construction.
“The economy of Odesa was developing through logistics, first of all, maritime one. But nowadays, technologies become a growth driver all over the world. Today, in Odesa, four times fewer IT professionals live and work than in Lviv, where the appropriate conditions have already been formed. Our goal is to create such an environment in Odesa. Therefore, we are building ITown not just as a set of offices, coworking spaces, and apartment buildings. This place is destined to become an agent of the city and region development,” comments Andrey Semenov, the project manager.
Where and when does ITown start
iTown is located between Prymorska and Sofiivska Streets in the central part of Odesa.
The park is planned to be fully completed in the 4th quarter of 2023. A 24-story building with offices (14 floors) and apartments (9 floors) will be put into operation first (tentatively in 2021-2022). There will be a restaurant on the top floor. The building is designed in such a way that the visitor of the office or restaurant will not be able to be on the residential floors.
How much will the apartments cost
According to the project representatives, the sale of the apartments has already started. Now the cost per square meter of living space is from $935.
The apartments will be rented out with complete refurbishment, kitchen furniture, and equipped bathroom.
Business part
Three extensible coworking spaces are planned in ITown.
According to Semenov, already at the design stage, ITown confirmed the opening of 3 representative offices of global tech brands and 6 Odessa-based tech companies. There are about 20 more companies in the process of negotiations.
What else
- Residential buildings will be equipped with smart systems that will know where a person needs to get to before one enters. Non-contact sensors will open the doors themselves, and the elevator will ‘understand’ which floor to go to.
- The biometric identification system will allow getting into the apartment even if the person has lost the keys.
- Given the global pandemic, everything in ITown is made to minimize the contact of hands with different surfaces in public areas.
- Only rainwater will be used for irrigation and household needs. For this purpose, a rainwater harvesting, filtration, and storage station will be installed.
Also, ITown is planning to equip a winter garden with sea views, a parking lot for 500 cars, a fitness center, a kindergarten, a cinema, IT schools, shops, etc.