The Chisinau Municipal Council approved the privatization of a land plot in front of the UNIC shopping center with an area of 1.28 hectares.
It is worth noting that in April 2016, the shareholders of JSC UNIC submitted an application to the Municipal Council for the privatization of this site and the lease of another one, located next to the shopping center. In December 2016, without waiting for the decision of the Chisinau Municipal Council, UNIC appealed to the court, which, in turn, ordered the Municipal Council to allow the privatization of a plot of 1.28 hectares and sign a lease agreement for another plot of 0.21 hectares. After that, the case was considered in the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Justice, but in the end, the decision of the court of first instance was preserved. During the consideration of this decision, numerous disputes arose in the Municipal Council, including the fact that the adjacent territory to the UNIC shopping center was privatized with violations and 10 times cheaper than the standard cost (for 2.6 million lei), and it was also announced that the is issue subject to review by the prosecution and anti-corruption authorities. As a result, the project was approved by the votes of 27 municipal councilors. At the same time, on Friday, the shareholders of JSC Magazinul Universal Central UNIC spoke about how the shopping center and the territory adjacent to it have changed since 2016, when the state-owned stake in this company was privatized, and also presented development plans. According to the general director of the company, Leonid Sidorov, the new owner invested 100 million lei in the reconstruction of the building and the improvement of the surrounding area. At the same time, according to the concept of modernization, at the second stage it is planned to allocate about 250 million lei for the improvement of the territory in front of the shopping center, the organization of a recreation area and a park, as well as solving the problem of parking, including through underground parking. Sidorov said that in 2016-2021 UNIC paid taxes totaling about 81.2 million lei, of which more than 61.4 million lei was land tax, and the rent of two adjacent plots cost more than 2.1 million lei. Let us recall that in 2016, Rogob acquired a state-owned stake in JSC Magazinul Universal Central UNIC for 252 million lei, later Rogvieru (the founder of Rogob) became another shareholder of the company. Almost immediately after the privatization, the new owner initiated the privatization procedure for the land plot adjacent to the territory of the shopping center with an area of 1.28 hectares. This site is owned by the municipality of Chisinau, its cadastral value is about 28 million lei. // 18.02.2022- InfoMarket.
