ZAGREB, 13 April 2022 - In February this year, 993 building permits were issued in Croatia, which is 21.1% more than in the same month last year, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (DZS).

Of those, 882 or 88.8% were issued for buildings and 111 or 11.2% for other structures.

Compared with February 2021, the number of building permits issued for buildings increased by 30.7% and the number of those issued for other structures fell by 23.4%.

The value of works envisaged in the permits was HRK 3 billion, which is 28.3% more than in February 2021, when their value was HRK 2.3 billion.

The permits issued for buildings estimated the value of works at HRK 2.3 billion (+34.6%) and the permits issued for other structures estimated the value of works at HRK 675 million (+10.1%).

Of the total number of building permits, 806 (81.2%) were issued for new-builds and 187 (18.8%) for reconstruction projects.

A total of 1,780 building permits were issued in January and February 2022, an increase of 12.2% compared with the same period in 2021.

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ZAGREB, 20 Jan 2022 - The volume of construction work in November 2021 was 4.5% up from the same month of 2020, while compared to October 2021 it was down 1%, preliminary data from the State Bureau of Statistics (DZS) indicate.

November 2021 was the 18th consecutive month to see a year-on-year increase in the volume of construction work.

The volume of construction work on buildings was up 6.9% compared to November 2020 while the volume of work on other structures was up 1.2%.

Compared to October 2021, the volume of work on buildings was 0.4% greater while the volume of work on other structures was down 3.3%.

A total of 60.8% of hours worked in November 2021 referred to work on new structures while 39.2% referred to repair works and maintenance.

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ZAGREB, 26 Aug 2021 - The volume of construction work carried out in Croatia in June 2021 rose 11.3% compared with June 2020, and it went up 2.1% as against May 2021, according to data provided by the National Bureau of Statistics (DZS) on Thursday.

June was the 13th consecutive month to see the rise in the volume of construction work on an annual level.

Year on year, the volume of construction work to buildings increased by 11.6% and the volume of construction work to other structures grew by 10.8%.

Month on month, the volume of construction work to buildings rose by 3.4%, while the volume of construction work to other structures increased by two percent.

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Savka cesta, an important, busy and visually neglected Zagreb street will welcome a 4-star 17-story luxury hotel with bars, shops and lounges; which will help revitalize this part of the city.

The winning submission has recently been selected for the architectural design competition of the complex, which will span a long-neglected plot at the intersection of Savska and Nova cesta, across the road from the Vjesnik building.

Unidentified German Group to Invest 40 Million EUR

A German entrepreneur is investing 40 million EUR into the hotel, and if all goes according to plan, they could break ground this year, so in about a year and a half the hotel, part of a large unnamed hotel chain will open its doors, according to Lana Mindoljević/Matej Devčić/Jutarnji List on January 5, 2020.

On Friday, an exhibition was held to showcase the submissions for the open competition, where architect Dario Travaš, from the Zagreb branch of ATP Architects and Engineers, a Central European design house, entered the winning design.

Travaš and ATP Firm Designed Zagreb Shopping Centers

Architect Travaš and Vienna-based ATP have designed, among other things, the Zagreb-Westgate Shopping City Center, Pula Shopping Center, the Western Shopping Center in Rijeka (ZTC) and IKEA Outlet Center in Rugvica. Travaš is also the chief designer for the expanded tourist zone at the Marina Harbor in Primošten and several tourist facilities for Falkensteiner resort chain.

Street View of Hotel Location

“We have adapted the conceptual design for the hotel to the spirit of the location. We simply decided to work with the urban conditions which were outlined in the competition. The 65-meter-high hotel will have 219 units, which includes rooms and suites and 17 floors,” Travaš explains.

Ground Floors for Commercial and Business Space

“The ground floor of the building will have spaces for commercial and business purposes. The entrance lobby and the reception will be housed on the fourth floor, which is one of the unique aspects of the hotel design. The ground floor will have a about 1150 square meters of office space, with one store occupying 800 to 900 square meters, and a bakery,” Travaš points out.

The first three floors will have an above-ground garage. Travaš indicates the building’s facade will be designed so that it passers-by won’t be able to detect that it is a garage. The ground floor and the first three floors will hug the border of the plot and will be on par with the houses on Savska cesta, which have four floors. On the fourth and fifth floors, he explains, there will be restaurants and a conference area which will be connected by a magnificent set of stairs, as Travaš maintains.

“Since the rest of the building will rise away from the façade to continue the scale of the buildings on Sava cesta; the fourth and fifth floors will have large terraces which can be accessed from the restaurant and conference area,” he adds.

Upper Floors Will be Used for Hotel and Sky Bar

“The rooms are oriented in all four directions. If you look South, you’ll see the Sava river. You can see the Zagreb Cathedral and the old part of the city by looking North. If you look West, you will have a view of the Western part of Medvednica. Every room will have a beautiful view,” Travaš claims.

The 17^th floor, which is also the top floor, will house a sky bar and a fitness room. The tower section of the hotel is set back from the curb and will line up with other skyscrapers on the Sava river. “It was very important that this tower be in sync with Vjesnik because that is the closest and most prominent building,” he explains.

The exterior design of the hotel will connect the windows of rooms on several floors vertically to give the impression that the hotel is taller than it really is. “Full sections of walls will be made of micro cement panels which look like Brač stone. Slavonian oak will dominate the interior, which will be full of greenery,” says Travaš.

Dario Travaš | ATP

He adds that the hotel is a good example of sustainable construction because pylons will be used for energy-efficiency, for example. This would not normally be the case as ATP does not consist of designers and engineers who worked together on the hotel innovations.

“Creating an urban dialogue and taking environmental standards were the challenges put before us, and we tried to create an attractive and modern facility that will define the spirit of Savska cesta, which has an architecturally unattractive lower section,” Travaš declares.

Four types of hotel accommodation will be offered: standard, comfort and junior rooms, and suites. The average floor area of ​​every rooms is 25 square meters.

Identity of German Investor and Hotel Chain Kept Secret

Eduard Vasilj of Kamelia Promet, the investor’s mediator, says that the Travaš/ATP Design submission was exactly what they had in mind when conceptualizing the project. Investors are delighted with the aesthetics, functionality and the practical solutions offered by the winning submission, he adds. He also notes the emphasis on business facilities, conference rooms and attractive sky bar on the top floor, which is the type of accommodation Zagreb currently lacks.

The identity of the German investors has not been revealed, except that they are from a family in the Hesse province, which has been in the real estate business for four generations. They invest in hotels, public facilities and the design of entire neighborhoods. They do not want to identify themselves publicly, nor do they wish to reveal the hotel chain the new hotel will operate under.

“While we are in a delicate period because several contracts have to be signed, this will be the German investor’s and hotel chain’s first entry into the Croatian market,” says Vasilj. He added that now that the conceptual design is completed and the lot has been purchased, they are hoping to begin construction soon with the support of the City of Zagreb.

Aerial View of Hotel Location

“We hope that our project will revive the entire Sava river area, which has been a bit neglected, and introduce a new element to the area. There will be shops and hair salons in the complex, so we believe that this will contribute giving the street a real European feel and offer an attractive view at the entrance to the city,” concludes Vasilj.

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As Novac/Adriano Milovan writes on the 6th of September, 2019, the value of construction works in the Republic of Croatia in the second quarter of this year stood at 10.6 percent higher than it did in the same period last year, while in the first half of the year it increased by as much as 19.2 percent compared to the same period last year.

These promising results on the state of Croatia's construction sector, which like a multitude of other industries has suffered some unwelcome blows of late, were shown when looking at some of the new data taken from national statistics.

The value of new orders in Croatia's construction industry is also on the rise. According to the data taken from the Central Bureau of Statistics, in the second quarter of this year, the percentage of orders was 3.7 percent higher than it was during the same period last year, while in the first half of 2019, they were higher by a very encouraging 12.1 percent when compared to the first half of last year.

Nearly half of the construction work in the first six months of this year in Croatia was related to buildings.

Namely, in the structure of construction works during this period, 33.1 percent referred to non-residential buildings, and 15.2 percent referred to residential buildings.

Furthermore, 33.8 percent of the works relate to the construction of transport infrastructure, which can probably be primarily attributed to the construction of the long awaited Pelješac bridge, a strategic project down in Dalmatia, and the continuation of work on converting the Istrian Ypsilon into a highway, while 14 percent is related to pipelines, communication and power lines across the country.

Complex construction works on industrial premises accounted for 2.5 percent of total construction work in the first half of this year in Croatia, while construction work for other buildings which don't fall into the above-mentioned categories accounted for 1.4 percent of total construction work, the latest data from the Central Bureau of Statistics shows.

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