KrakowInformer.com

Even in crisis Bonarka City Center was successfully finished and became a workplace for a few thousand people

A wrecked plant a few years ago...

... will become a business center...

...and a penthouse area.

The biggest mall in Krakow is finally open. The idea of the Bonarka project is to bring this place back to the city; to transform degraded post-industrial land into a space vibrant and full of life – a modern Krakow district.

Bonarka is a particular place in the post-industrial landscape of Krakow. It is the 4^th part of Podgórze, a historical quarter of Krakow, located on the south bank of Vistula river. Since the end of the 19^th century, Bonarka’s area has accommodated a cement factory, and in 1948, partly using certain historical equipment, it was replaced by the 'Bonarka' state factory of fertilizers, later renamed to ‘Bonarka’ chemical works. The plants were ultimately closed in 2003.The years of negligence, over-exploitation and lack of care have led to the ruination of the bonarka area. In order to establish people-friendly urban development, thorough land reclamation has become necessary. It is one of the largest - if not the largest - reclamation processes following closure of an industrial plant in Poland.

Now, the area of bonarka is once again becoming an attractive and inhabitant-friendly place, which ensures the appropriate road infrastructure and maintains the natural assets of the landscape.Within the framework of the first stage of works, a trade and service centre is being developed. The second and third stages encompass the development of an A-class office complex with the working name ‘b4b’, with a total lease space of 35,000 m², which will be the largest maximum-standard complex of office buildings in Krakow. The first two buildings (A and B) will be realised in 2010. The third stage is Bonarka residential estate. In 2011, several hundred high-standard flats with varied living spaces will be constructed on the premises of the complex. The total value of these investments is about 500 million euro.