The $1 Billion Race for Istanbul's Zorlu Center Heats up

Via Turkish Daily News:

The Zorlu Group has begun the final stages of a competition among architecture firms for the building of the Zorlu Center, to be built on the Highway Field in Istanbul, which the group purchased for $800 million in a March 2007 tender. While four projects qualified to be among the final 117, the winner will be announced Aug. 20.

“We allocated $1 billion for project costs and the Monuments Board will elect the winner,” said Ahmet Nazif Zorlu, board chairman of the group.

“I do not think the difference between costs of four projects will be more than $100 million,” he said. “We are establishing a concept with the Zorlu Center. All projects that were submitted to us include social and cultural structures such as conference halls, concert halls, museum and an electronic library, as well as including hotel, business center, shopping mall and residences.”

“We have not yet set a turnover amount for the Zorlu Center,” said Zorlu. “We do not know what we will sell and what we will not in this project yet. That is why we have not calculated the turnover. We will begin to calculate after the winner is chosen.”

Zorlu is negotiating with a large Asian company, which has not operated in Turkey before, for the administration of the hotel and residences, he said. “We will make our promise that we would establish a project which befits Istanbul. This project will be an attractive one,” Zorlu added…

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