On April 16, Sofia municipal council decided to ask the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works to change the spatial regulations for buildings.

The reason is an ambitious plan to build twin towers in Sofia's Zona B-5 neighbourhood. The skyscrapers will be 300m high and have 75 floors. Councillors asked the ministry to shorten the distance between the future skyscrapers and the neighbouring buildings by more than a third. The proposal was tabled by Plamen Iliev, chairperson of the Democrats for Sofia group of municipal councillors.

The twin towers are supposed to be Sofia's first skyscrapers. This is not the first time that municipal councillors in Bulgaria have had skyscrapers on their minds. The idea of a tall building with hundreds of offices to rent continues to attract a lot of attention. A year ago, it was announced that the Black Sea city of Bourgas was to have the first skyscraper in Bulgaria. How such a building will fit in Bulgaria's post-communist towns is yet to be formally discussed. Some opinions are that Bulgaria's cities, and Sofia in particular, are not designed to have skyscrapers. Others hold the opinion that skyscrapers exist already. According to Ivan Lapatov, a professor at the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy, Sofia today has a total of 471 skyscrapers. Laptov told Bulgaria's Focus news agency that he did not accept the debates about the construction of a first skyscraper in Sofia. A building is defined as a skyscraper when there are 12 usable floors and minimum 30m height, Lapatov told Focus. The highest building in Sofia is the Hotel Rodina, 104m with 25 stories. Second is the trade unions building on Makedonia Square, 94m and 22 stories, and in third place, the Kempinski Hotel Zografski with 90m and 20 stories. While some are dreaming about the sky, others have their feet on the ground.

Strahil Ivanov, president of the Yavlena real estate agency, told Bulgarian-language Pari daily that hospitals could make perfect business buildings. Hospitals are usually in busy areas with well-developed transport networks and infrastructure, which makes them attractive as real estate. Most hospitals were built in the 1970s and the buildings were in relatively good condition, Ivanov said.

"They can be easily transformed into administrative establishments. Therefore, if hospitals are privatised, there should be a clause stipulating that the line of business should remain unchanged for the next five or 10 years," Ivanov said. Otherwise, if privatised, hospitals might be turned into office buildings.