Sofia Municipality was ready to pay 1.1 million euro to expropriate a single building that would be demolished to free space for a road construction, Sega daily newspaper reported on October 10.

The decision was made by the municipality’s committee on budget and finance, in a sitting on October 9.

Large sums of money will be paid for other buildings that have to be expropriated and later demolished to make way for the construction of a new stretch of the Danail Nikolaev Boulevard in Bulgaria’s capital.

The building with the record evaluation is at the corner of the Belogradchik and Veslets streets, close to the Central Railway Station in Sofia. Built in the 1930-s and of high quality, it currently hosts some company offices, as well as a restaurant.

To disown the restaurant only, the municipality would have to pay 308 783 euro, 919 euro per sq m, Sega said. The total amount to be paid for the expropriation of the office spaces was 649 930 euro, or 515 euro per sq m. The terrain occupied by the building itself, totalling 1024 sq m, would also be reimbursed to its owners with 385 euro per sq m.

Sega quoted experts as saying that the reason for the height of the compensation was that the building “is solid-built and functional”. Sofia Municipality’s budget and finance committee chairman Ivan Neikov said the price was not very high and it would be better for the city to pay it before it would rise even more, especially if the owners would decide to appeal against the expropriation in court.