Tomas Klima, director of SEBRE: Marina Dorćol is returning Belgrade to the Danube

What`s left for the city after a big investment project is finished? Are they just new squares or also public spaces, facilities and urban places that change the way citizens use and experience the city? Exactly these questions, say SEBRE, are at the basis of their development philosophy and influence the choice of locations, project design and long-term investment decisions.

- When choosing locations, we proceed from the long-term potential of the space. Instead of looking at the location through its current market value, the company seeks to recognize its future importance and role in the development of the city. That`s why SEBRE often chooses complex urban locations with a pronounced historical, cultural or spatial identity - former industrial zones, riverbanks, abandoned urban units and locations that carry a part of the city`s history. Such locations require more time, expertise and investment, but at the same time they provide the opportunity to create projects with authentic character and lasting value.

- SEBRE`s portfolio is being built gradually and deliberately - we never wanted to grow at any cost. Our key references are projects in Prague, such as the reconstruction of the Špork Palace in the very center of the city. In 2018, this project received the Building of the Year award - the most important Czech national award for architecture - as an exceptional example of careful restoration of a historical building within the strictly protected core of Prague. The same success was repeated by the unique green building DRN, which in 2019 was also declared building of the year, won the Prague Mayor`s Award and was nominated for the most prestigious European Mies van der Rohe Award. These are the projects that have defined us - they have shown that complicated sites with historical heritage are not a handicap but an opportunity.

We entered Serbia in a deliberate manner. We started with a smaller project - Residence Puškinova in Senjak - in order to understand the market, regulation, local partners. Only when we gained enough knowledge and trust did we approach Marina Dorćol, which in terms of scope and complexity is our biggest project to date and one of the biggest investments from the European Union in Serbia.

- It was not just one that prevailed, all four were important. The location of Marina Dorćol is exceptional and demanding at the same time: the Danube, the historical center, the protected former Power and Light power plant from the thirties, the marina. It`s not an empty plot of land where you can freely design. It is a place that has its own logic and its own story, and you must listen to it.

The guiding idea was how to create an urban unit that opens the city towards the river. For decades, Belgrade had no real access to the Danube on this section. We are changing that. Promenade, public spaces, green areas and facilities intended for the entire city, not just residents. It`s not marketing, it`s an essential urban principle that we defined before anything else.

Every apartment in Marina Dorćol has a terrace or a garden - it`s not a balcony of a few square meters, but a real green space that is a continuation of the home. The complex has more than 30,000 square meters of green space. Along the river there are restaurants and cafeterias with open views. Within the complex there is a supermarket, pharmacy, fitness, two kindergartens. We keep the premises on the ground floor under our ownership and we choose the tenants ourselves. It is our way to guarantee the quality of the environment in which people will live.

Marina Dorćol is not conceived as a closed complex that you enter and exit - but as a living part of the city. And I think that`s what people are really looking for these days.

- Yes, and I would say that without hesitation. Belgrade is a city at the confluence of two rivers, but for a long time it had no real relationship with those rivers. The Danube was inaccessible on this stretch.

The promenade along the Danube will be public and accessible to all citizens of Belgrade, not only to the residents of Marina Dorćol. Instead of moorings for yachts, we decided on pontoons intended for all Belgrade residents - for walking, resting and recreation along the river. We also signed a memorandum with the Academic Kayak Club, the oldest Serbian kayak club, and we give them free space inside the complex for a training center with direct access to the water.

All that together - promenade, pontoons, line park, kayak club - forms one new, lively coastal zone.

- In twenty years, we will see if we have succeeded if people from all over Belgrade come to this bank of the Danube because they like it here, because there is a reason to come, because they feel welcome.

From day one, we didn`t just build a residential complex - we built a part of the city. An open coastal zone that belongs to all. If in two decades it functions as a place where the city lives and breathes, that would be a real success for me.

SEBRE came to Serbia to stay and every project we develop here is a personal responsibility - to the place, to the city and to everything that remains behind us.