Some of Sofias well-known hotels were to be soon rearranged into commercial and office buildings, investors said, as quoted by Dnevnik daily on October 29.
Grandhotel Bulgaria, in the centre of Sofia, would change its function, said Emil Vassilev, representative of BT Development Services, one of the companies that inherited former state-owned Balkantourist. Meanwhile, another hotel in downtown Sofia, Serdica, would also be turned into a multi-functional building. Other old-time hotel buildings in the city were to follow the example soon, after failing to withstand the competition from newly built luxury hotels.
The four-star Grandhotel Bulgaria was one of the oldest hotels in the centre of Sofia. In the past several months it had not been operating at full capacity and a part of it was undergoing repair. Due to increasing competition from new hotels, the owners had decided to change the buildings purpose, said Dessislava Kinova, marketing manager of BT Development Services, as quoted by Dnevnik.
The investment fund Equest, which owned the Serdica hotel, had a similar reason for a rearrangement. After carefully researching the market, Equest decided to close the hotel and turn its building into a business centre with offices and retail stores.
The reconstruction of Grandhotel Bulgaria was to be completed by 2010. The planned investment was 80 million leva, for which the company was granted a First Class Investment Certificate on October 26, Dnevnik said. The certificate entitles the project to infrastructure funding from local and state government.
