New settlements, towers and golden cities – 2025 RETROSPECTIVE, Investments in REAL ESTATE

There are slightly fewer building permits issued, but architects tell us that they are working as before, which means that Serbia is still seeing construction activity and will continue to build - buildings - and if there is anything you like to read on eKapija, it is when the topic is buildings, although - many of you - do not read about them because you like them very much. Among Serbs, there are few who really love the city, although most would like to be called Urbanites, their worldview - due to heritage or vanity? - prefers the undeveloped, the meadow/grassland principle, so much so that many of you, when they read that something will be built, on a building plot that has always been there, curse the time they live in and everything that is holy because they did not leave them the Holy Void where they inherited it from the time of their home saints-patrons and ancestors.

We see all this from numerous comments, rarely anyone praises anything, and most of all private companies are criticized – for not building a park, or even: Where are our factories? – although parks should be regulated by the public authorities, while in a private company that builds residential buildings, factories are not opened, so the reasoning is, why should they sit idly by?; moreover, factories are actually being built recently, it must be said, “but on the most fertile land!”, and “why foreign ones and not ours?”

So many buildings, it is said, have turned our streets into canyons - new flights to European cities are constantly being introduced here and all the canyon streets are being toured, because, excuse me, all European cities have such, only they are actually interesting - some threaten to move out due to overbuilding, necessarily to some city that is three times more densely built – Paris, ugly and unfriendly to everyone, has only 20,000 Parisians per square meter - but, of course, they stay here to... comment.

And if the building is outside the canyon, freestanding – a skyscraper – it is still very much objected to. On the “Potera” quiz, one knows a little more about architecture than about literature, about which, as Jovan Memedovic quipped once, one knows nothing. Even the professor/idol of our relatively recent architects/urban planners, an Americanizer and a highway planner in the socialist slums, who almost lost the Holy Canyon Ruins due to the authorities kowtowing to the crazy orange Donald Duck, did not know anything useful about urban planning. Overall, it is what it is, a vicious red-blue-white circle, and in it:

1. Becmen oasis

The absolute hit of the year, in terms of clicks equal to the bizarre things found on tabloid-trivial websites, with titles like “You won't believe it!”: the announcement of the public review of the Draft Detailed Regulation Plan for the Oasis complex in Becmen, Surcin municipality.



On 350 hectares of the Srem plain, increasingly valuable - Srem is the most developed geographical area of Serbia - the construction of a luxurious residential and sports complex of a high standard is planned, with facilities such as an 18-hole golf course, outdoor and indoor sports fields, a golf academy, a club, hotel and tourist facilities.

Once, then, the Pig Breeding Srem, today - Americanization.

2. State construction in Borca

Back to Serbia, to Banat, which lags behind Srem a lot, perhaps because the Srem intersection in front of Pupin’s Bridge has access points like footbridges and when you have to cross, you have to wait for half an hour. The Serbian Construction Directorate has begun construction of the first phase of a residential and business complex with five units, worth 50 million euros, in Borca, near the retail park: 333 apartments, 22 shops, 441 parking places.



The architecture, if you’ll excuse me, is reminiscent of the design of the Central Prison.

The right question here is, because of the congested Pupin, not to mention the Pancevo Bridge and the lack of a decent high school across the Danube: And where will these new tenants go?

3. Mixed centers in Rakovica

The Secretariat for Urban Planning and Construction Affairs announced an early public review for the development of a Detailed Regulation Plan for the area between Pilota Mihaila Petrovica, Maricka and Stevana Lukovica streets, on the territory of the City Municipality of Rakovica, for the needs of an investor with a nostalgic name: the company Dvadesetprvi maj-hotelijerstvo i ugostiteljstvo.

The plan covers approximately 2.62 hectares, and the development of mixed city centers, combining commercial facilities and residential space, is planned. A local and moderate increase in the number of Rakovica residents is expected: from 416 to 1,170, and the number of employees from 145 to 328.

4. 60,000 m2 across from the (Old) Fairgrounds

It’s time to start calling it the Old one, because by the time the announced construction opposite its halls is finished, the new one will have moved to the esteemed Surcin (and the Old Fairgrounds will become the Oldest - we are waiting for a response from the Newest Mercator).

In any case, you were very interested in the public review of the Draft Detailed Regulation Plan for the area between Vojvode Misica Boulevard and Ruska, Viktora Igoa, Milovana Glisica and (Russian) Generala Cernjajeva streets, on the territory of the City Municipality of Savski Venac. The client for the construction is Belgrade’s Terra Investicije.

On 3.6 hectares of this good place, there are various facilities, including the Institute for Materials Testing (which is to be left alone). The total gross developed area increases from 40,177 m2 to 97,550 m2. The expected number of apartments is 254, the population is 740, and the number of employees is 863.

5. Another 1,300 Banjica residents

The Secretariat for Urban Planning and Construction has announced the public review of the Draft Amendments to the Detailed Regulation Plan for a part of the Belgrade settlement of Banjica. This is an area covered by Crnotravska Street, JNA Boulevard, Beranska, Borska and Kaljavi potok streets, in the immediate vicinity of five skyscrapers.

The investor of the planned project is the company Dr. Michael Outschar d.o.o. The construction of around 450 apartments for approximately 1,300 future residents is planned. The Ljolja preschool institution already exists within the block, but the rest of the old plans remained unrealized and the location has become “overgrown with wild vegetation.”

The problem, however, is that much of the greenery in Belgrade is wild, and it is being cut down as if there was no tomorrow, and planned forests are planted very poorly or not at all.



6. New tower of New Belgrade

The story of the construction of every major building in old Belgrade is always accompanied by an amendment: We don’t need it here, move it over to New Belgrade! And New Belgrade then, like Tara, responds: Sure, fill up New Belgrade some more, well done, geniuses, and where are we all going to park, have you thought about that at all?!

Our people seem to believe that someone is obliged to provide them with a parking space on a public surface. And us New Belgraders, we are used to officer-widths. I’m talking wide! Because a ride is only nice while the neighbor is waiting for the bus, then there is no rush hour on the Gazela Bridge: urban life through the steering wheel, or Americanization, but not to the benefit of Americans.

Americanization, of course, also includes skyscrapers. Alta Bank is planning one, instead of its low building, on the corner at New Mercator. The late Ivan Stambolic used to work in the building, back when Mercator was not yet Old, and in the place of New Mercator, opposite the building, stood a wild forest. Now the Central Business District of Belgrade is there. Everything is changing, and even the non-Alta building is heading skywards.

London has grown a lot in height, and in London less than 1 percent of employees commute to the Central Business District by car. Alta Bank will, as we wrote in our text, entrust the London architectural firm Zaha Hadid Architects and the Belgrade architectural studio Bureau Cube Partners with the design of the new Alta Tower. This project, on 34 floors, unites the new bank headquarters, residential units, office spaces for rent, as well as commercial and catering facilities within the public space at street level.

This is met with: “Geniuses, who else mixes business and residential purposes?!”, although the answer is right under our noses: New Belgrade has always done so, successfully, in plans and in practice.

7. Crowne Plaza as the crown of Zlatibor

The newest new town in Serbia is a former rural area, Zlatibor around Kraljeve (temporarily Partizanske) vode. And since it is a new and freshly painted (white) town, it is only fit for it to have its own Crowne Plaza.

The international hotel chain InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) has announced its entry into Zlatibor, where a new hotel complex will be built under the Crowne Plaza brand. The project was officially launched with the signing of a contract between IHG and the company LUSS Leisure doo.



The preliminary design envisages 225 rooms, a spa center, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, as well as facilities for congresses, fitness and children’s playrooms. In addition to the hotel, the complex is planned to include 7 residential buildings with a total of about 850 accommodation units, as well as a special facility intended for employees.

The total value of the investment is estimated at EUR 70 to 80 million.

8. Hotel Jagodina sold to a private individual

The Republic of Serbia did not exercise its right of pre-emption in accordance with the Law on Cultural Heritage, so the public auction for Hotel Jagodina by the Morava River, a pearl of Yugoslav architecture from the richest period (of Yugoslavia), was won by a private individual.

Hotel Jagodina was sold at the second auction, at the starting price, for 87.5 million dinars. In addition to the building, the buyer also received equipment, small inventory, supplies, as well as paintings and sculptures previously declared cultural property.

The calculation is that it was sold cheaply, for 75 euros per square meter.

So why didn’t you pay 76?

9. Apartments for 5,000 people – near the Wholesale Green Market

Belgrade settlements once spread far towards the chicken hills in the south, along the planned subway line, and as if that wasn’t enough of a failure and so many hours of life lost in squeezing through crowded buses - because nothing ever came of the subway - people are constantly bothered when the city’s fabric thickens, and they often say: Why isn’t it built wider? And sometimes investors listen to the divine voice of the people, and they plan a settlement behind the New Bezanija Cemetery, where the old Rodic, Belgrade’s first hypermarket of suburban provenance, stood, near Tempo and not far from the Wholesale Green Market. A new mixed-use city center is planned there with more than 1,800 apartments for 4,675 residents, business facilities for 738 employees, an elementary school and a kindergarten.

In terms of transportation, the promising line 612 passes through this area. Anyone who has the means to live also has the means to drive, but the capacity of one lane on the nearby highway is not even 2,000 cars per hour, and only two lanes lead to the city. And so...

10. Golden City to be built

Before the end of the year, the head of Cajetina, i.e. Zlatibor, Milan Stamatovic, brought some news: the construction of the long-announced Golden City, a tourist mega project on the most popular Serbian mountain, he said, could start soon.

– This is a serious job and a long-standing project. We will not give up on it. For several years now, we have been talking about New Zlatibor, Gold City, golf courses, residential villas and high-class hotels on this stretch. This is something that will mark this year through planning and project documentation, and I hope that next year (that is, this year, 2026 - eKapija’s note) we will start with the first works. We are also working on the construction of an airport in Zlatibor with a length of 700 meters in the first phase, and later 1,500 and 2,500 meters. It all depends on the investors who are interested and send us a letter about their intentions, and we carefully analyze it and we will come out with that data very soon – says Stamatovic.

Much has been said and written on the subject of Zlatibor, mistakes and exaggerations cannot be hidden, but tourists like it – both ours and Bulgarians.

M. Radonjic

ELGOLF DOO BEOGRAD

CEP d.o.o.

Građevinska direkcija Srbije d.o.o. Beograd

Dr. Michael Outschar d.o.o. Beograd

Alta banka ad Beograd

Opština Čajetina

21. maj d.o.o. - hotelijerstvo i ugostiteljstvo doo Beograd

Terra investicije doo Begrad

LUSS Leisure doo Beograd

Bureau Cube Partners d.o.o. Beograd

Retrospective 2025

Oasis Bečmen

Zaha Hadid Architects

Dvadesetprvi maj hotelijerstvo i ugostiteljstvo

Crowne Plaza Zlatibor

InterContinental Hotels Group

IHG

Hotel Jagodina