RENOVA Stroy Group is going to present its Academic Construction Project at Global City 2007, an international forum to be held in Lyon on May 14-16, 2007, the company's press officer reports.

Global City is an international forum for business executives and members of city councils devoted to strategies, new methods and specific projects in the field of municipal improvement. The forum is a globally recognized place to present one’s large town planning projects and share one’s experience in dealing with construction challenges related to urban development.

The agenda of the forum provides for a special conference on the multi-faceted urban area development within the framework of Academic construction project; this is one of Russia and Europe’s largest construction projects currently implemented in Yekaterinburg. The conference will be attended by mayors of major Russian and European cities as well as representatives of the world’s leading developers and architectural design companies. Reports are to be presented by Veniamin Golubitskiy (RENOVA CEO), Deputy Mayor of Yekaterinburg Vladimir Kritskiy, and Jean Pistre, the architect who designed the Academic project. They intend to speak on the challenges and successes of the project. Global City 2007 attendees will thus be able to get acquainted with the latest trends in urban construction. Multi-faceted area development aims to create new districts and satellites in or next to large Russian cities, setting up a modern urban infrastructure from scratch (which covers everything from engineering facilities to transport links to commercial estate). The future Academic district is to become Russia’s first multi-faceted area development project, with the first dwellings started as soon as this year. A whole range of Russian cities are expected to model their growth on this Yekaterinburg-based project.

The underlying principles of the new project are being environmentally friendly and using the most advanced design and building technologies. Multi-faceted area development is a good way to modernize some old industrial cities - a task of vital importance for today’s Russia. Such projects are seen by RENOVA as part of their general policy targeted at socio-economic improvements in the country and promoting growth and development in cities and towns hosting the company’s subsidiaries.

The new district is to appear in the south-west of Yekaterinburg and is expected to occupy 2,500 hectares of land, with 1,200 hectares covered by forests and parks and 1,300 hectares used for putting up over 9 million square meters of housing and over 4.2 million square meters of buildings meant for commercial and socially important purposes. Three highways will provide a link to the center of the city, and there is also going to be a high-speed tram service. This will become home to 325,000 dwellers, with houses and flats divided into five categories: 51% of dwellings will belong to economy class, 33% of them will be middle-class ones, 11% of the dwellings are to be classed as business class ones, with 4% and 1% belonging to premium class and town house class, respectively. Besides, a university campus and a large medical center will be created as well.