Mixed-Use Zorlu Center Raises Stakes in Istanbul

By JON GORVETT

Published: July 14, 2011

A rendering of the Zorlu Center, a mixed-use extravaganza rising in Zincirlikuyu, on the city’s European shores.

ISTANBUL — While Istanbul is often described as a city of contradictions — somehow growing both more Western and more Eastern, more open and more closed — only a few real estate projects have seized on these contrasts as the foundation of a development philosophy.

One that has is the Zorlu Center, a mixed-use extravaganza rising in Zincirlikuyu, on the city’s European shores. This four-tower, five-function and two-theater project aims to provide the city’s most luxurious apartments as well as entertainment for people without a lira to spend.

The Center, scheduled to open by the end of next year, also illustrates the continued dynamism of Istanbul’s high-end real estate market — and of Turkey’s robust economy, scarcely affected by the global downturn that has flattened its neighbor, Greece.

The Center site, which totals 102,000 square meters, or almost 1.1 million square feet, was bought in 2007 for $800 million by Zorlu Property, part of the Zorlu Group, now one of the largest conglomerates in Turkey and in Europe. When the project is complete, Zorlu Property says, the company will have invested more than $2.5 billion. (In Turkey, top-end real estate generally is priced in U.S. dollars.)

The residential units in the Center, which will vary from 117 square meters to 733 square meters, are selling at $9,500 to $18,000 per square meter, depending on the type of apartment and the view, although the developers think demand will push prices for the best units to $20,000 per square meter by the time the apartments are ready for occupancy at the end of 2012.

If the prediction is accurate, that would put the Center’s top prices at the low end of the world’s most expensive residential range. Knight Frank real estate said that, for January 2011, luxury prices in Hong Kong were $30,677 per square meter; in London, $26,328; and in New York, $22,614.

The development seems to be affecting surrounding areas, too. Data from Colliers International real estate brokers show that districts around the Center now command $7,500 to $10,000 per square meter in next-door Etiler and around $6,000 per square meter in nearby Levent.

“Until recently, we’ve all been wondering how far up prices could go,” said Mehmet Even, an assistant general manager at Zorlu Property. “Istanbul has been basically a wealthy place for hundreds of years, although admittedly, the last century has been a bit quiet. Now, though, it’s definitely taking off again.”

The project, so far advertised only by word of mouth and its towers’ growing outlines on the city skyline, has sold 30 percent of its residential units since pre-construction sales began in October 2010.

Location, of course, is everything. Zincirlikuyu is a place where a jumble of highways from Asia and Europe intersect, before heading off again into the central business district, the upmarket residential region of Etiler and the older commercial and residential venues of Nisantasi, Taksim and Besiktas.

“What we’re trying to do here is create a private place that is also very much a public part of Istanbul,” said Mehmet Emre Zorlu, a board member of Zorlu Property Group who, born in 1984, also is a good example of the growing number of youthful businesspeople in this ancient city.

To achieve that goal, the architects Emre Arolat and Murat Tabanlioglu — the Turkish winners of an international competition for the design — have created a south-facing terrace overlooking the Bosporus, partly as a level surface for construction and partly as a public gathering area. On this terrace, “we have a hard shell that evolves into a soft and green hill,” Mr. Arolat said.

Four towers rise from the terrace, including the residential development, a $175 million Raffles Hotel and spa, and around 22,000 square meters of office space. There also will be a shopping center, with parking and access roads created below ground level at a cost of $100 million.

via Mixed-Use Zorlu Center Raises Stakes in Istanbul – NYTimes.com.