February 20th, 2022 - The new hotel should have 150 rooms and suites, as well as a residential part with 115 apartments that will make up a 'mini city' complete with restaurants, bars and shops

It’s been a long time coming, but it seems that construction works are finally about to begin on the old Maraska building in Zadar. The former factory is to be transformed into a high-category Hotel Hyatt with an addition of a residential area, owned by the Turkish Dogus Group.

As reported by Slobodna Dalmacija, a source from the Dogus Group said that cleanup works are underway on the grounds of the old building, to be followed by securing the structure which is in extremely poor condition.

‘Seeing that the structure is really old and neglected, we’ll have to secure it first, and then, in ten days or so, we’ll have an official opening of the construction site where all Zadar media will be invited’, said the source, adding that everyone at the Dogus Group is looking forward to construction kicking off.

‘We’re very pleased to finally be able to announce we’re moving forward! Starting from today, there’ll be no more waiting or holdups, and we hope we’ll soon make the people of Zadar proud with the new hotel which will surely stimulate tourism on a higher level’, said the source. 

The investment is worth €120 million, and the hotel should have around 150 rooms and suites, a spa, a wellness centre, a conference hall, restaurants and bars. The development will also have a residential area with 115 apartments making up a ‘mini city’ together with restaurants, bars, shops and other attractive facilities.

Construction of the new hotel was originally supposed to begin in 2016, but was delayed due to complications in the development of the other part of the hotel complex. The Dogus Group together with Hyatt had to wait for the situation to clear up in regards to urban planning in the area around the hotel. They’re participating in the tender for Marina Zadar, and it remains to be seen if they managed to resolve the matter.

Hyatt Zadar - Dogus Group

The Dogus Group is one of the bigger foreign investors in Croatia, namely in nautical facilities in Šibenik, Sukošan and Zadar. Representatives of the Croatian subsidiary of the Turkish group have stated once before that the company invested around 270 million euro in Croatian tourism in the ten years they’ve been doing business in Croatia.

In mid-2019, the company Crodux, formerly owned by Tankerkomerc, announced its intention to build a large development near the Maraska building, namely in the area from the Tankerkomerc administrative building to the marina of the same name. This Dogus group has confirmed this as one of the reasons for the delays in the Maraska project.

At one point, Dogus also planned to take partial ownership of Tankeromerc and merge the Maraska Hotel project with Marina Zadar, but the pre-bankruptcy settlement fell through once it turned out that Tankerkomerc wasn’t a confirmed future concessionaire of the marina and that the story was far from over.

The state will soon take possession of Marina Zadar, based on a final judgement in their dispute with Tankerkomerc that was launched about ten years ago.

Tankerkomerc believes that it should be the owner of the marina on the basis of many years of ownership, operation and investments in the facility, and the state disputes this because the marina is considered to be maritime property.

According to the latest verdict from January 2020, the marina should have been returned to the Ministry of Maritime Affairs, but Tankerkomerc, which was taken over by General Ivan Čermak in the meantime, filed an appeal that has since been resolved in favour of the Ministry.

Tankerkomerc also has a dispute with the state concerning the return on their investments in the marina in the amount of €40 million.