Six major construction projects in Kyiv set to conclude in 2022
Plans are huge for Kyiv construction 2022: American University, Holodomor Museum, new subway line and two bridges.
American University Kyiv
The old river station in downtown Kyiv is set to host a new college – American University Kyiv (AUK). The project was conceived in partnership with Arizona State University, a public college in Phoenix, AZ. After an announcement in late July, 2021, the river station building (7,700 square meters) has been leased to AUK for ten years.
The university plans to admit the first batch of post-graduate students this spring, with a class of undergrads joining them in September. AUK expects to have 3,800 alumni after five years. Initial degrees will be offered in business management and IT, eventually extending to engineering, architecture, design and law degrees.
AUK plans to have around 2,000 to 3,000 concurrent students. The project is funded by both domestic and foreign investors, with the latter ones being represented by Kurt Volker, the former United States Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations.
The river station building will be renovated, and its façade and iconic modernist mosaics will be carefully preserved. The interior will be adapted to teaching, including proper furnishing and signage. The cost of these renovations is yet unclear, as are AUK’s eventual tuition fees. Viktor Hromoviy, editor-in-chief of the Education Policy website, which covers education policy in Ukraine, speculates that AUK’s tuition could end up being around $15,000 annually. Private schools around Kyiv typically charge around $10,000 in tuition, with international schools charging as much as $21,000 per year.
Vynohradar subway link
Late 2021 was supposed to see the grand opening of several new stations along the Syretz-Pechersk metro line (commonly referred to as the green line), but some delays occurred along the way. The company responsible for subway construction, Kyivmetrobud, asked for a delay until 2023, but courts were only willing to go as far as 2022. The official company website states that the bulk of the project – the tunnelling – is complete.
Kyivmetrobud won the contract to extend the subway link to Kyiv’s Vynohradar district in 2018, with a bid of UAH 5.98 billion ($218 million). The city council directed UAH 543 million ($20 million) towards the Vynohradar line extension and a new Podilskyi bridge on June 14, 2021.
The metro extension will be the first section of the Kyiv Metropolitan that will use double layered tunnels: when going between the Mostytzka and Pravda Avenue stations, trains drive through two stacked metro tunnels. Space constrains related to connecting the new Vynohradar link, as well as the rather narrow Mezheva street, has led to the choice of these novel “stacked” tunnels.
Mostytzka station is going to be 12 meters deep, with exits at Belytzka, Mezheva and Pivnicho-Syretzka streets. Meanwhile the Pravda Avenue station is set to be 15 meters deep and will have exits at Mezheva street and its namesake, Pravda Avenue.
Podilskyi Bridge
Podilskyi Bridge is a rather notorious and protracted construction project: The plans for a new bridge over the Dnipro river were drawn up all the way back in 1993, and construction commenced in 2003. Stage one of the bridge was more than 50 percent funded by late November, 2021, and should be complete sometime this year, according to the Kyiv City Council’s Transport and Infrastructure Department.
On and off ramps to the bridge have been completed on the Rybalskyi Peninsula, along with connections to the quay. The council also reports that work has been completed on the two metro stations on the bridge itself, Sudnobudivna and Desenka. Pending some finishing touches related to tunnels near the bridge, wiring, and a link to Balzac Street, the Podilskyi bridge is set to open for car traffic in 2022. Work on the second tier of the bridge, which will host the metro line, will begin afterwards.
St. Nicholas Cathedral
The iconic Roman Catholic Church of St. Nicholas in Kyiv was damaged by a fire on Sept. 3, 2021. The fire, which raged for about an hour-and-a-half, damaged the interior and destroyed a one-of-a-kind Reiger-Kloss pipe organ, installed in 1981.
Now, the cathedral is being restored. The cost of restoring the cathedral to its former glory is around UAH 20 million ($730,000), and is being covered by charitable donations. Ukrspetzrestavratziya, the company in charge of the project, expects to complete it by June 1, 2022.
Holodomor Genocide Museum
The first stage of the Holodomor memorial complex was built back in 2010, and ground was broken on the second stage – the museum itself – in 2017. After numerous scandals and delays, construction is finally set to go forward.
The museum itself will occupy a four-story building over a 74,000 square meter plot, adjoining the existing memorial. It is to be erected slightly below the candle-shaped memorial, and will have a lower and an upper entrance.
“The one-of-a-kind museum building will embody the Holodomor genocide emerging from the shadowy decades of being covered up and downplayed, and stepping into the daylight,” reads the description of the site on the museum’s website. “The shape of the roof symbolizes roiling freshly-plowed land, and the efforts of thousands of people who toiled to unearth the dark truth about this tragedy.”
The Holodomor Genocide Museum was designed in collaboration between two bureaus: Ukrainian Project Systems and the Polish Nizio Design International. The architects’ chief objectives were to naturally integrate the museum into the hills rolling down to the Dnipro river, and complete the ensemble with the memorial monument.
“We’re essentially done with renovating the first stage of the museum complex,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his Holodomor Memorial Day speech on Nov. 27, 2021.
“Next year (2022) will mark the 90th anniversary of this horrible tragedy of the Ukrainian people, and we ought to complete the second stage of the project by then,” the president added.
Meanwhile, the museum’s website says the construction will finish in 2023.
Darnytskyi Bridge
Under construction since 2004, Darnytskyi Bridge is another link across the Dnipro River that’s scheduled to open in 2022. It connects the highway interchange on the quay on the Dnipro’s left bank, with the Naddnipryanske Highway on the right one.
The bridge has been “almost complete” for over 10 years: it was “partially” open since 2011, but on/off ramps on the left bank still remain unfinished.
Joint Ukrainian-German company Avtostrada won the bid to finally finish the construction of the Darnytskyi Bridge, with estimated completion by 2022, at a cost of 1.15 billion UAH ($41 million). Avtostrada says that they will guarantee the quality of the bridge’s road to last for at least ten years.
Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google News
