New City to Emerge As Part of Aviation Center

The new territory will feature a university, offices, a technopark and a residential area.

The St. Petersburg Times

Published: October 3, 2012 (Issue # 1729)

MOSCOW — A new town of 60,000 residents will appear next to the science city of Zhukovsky, 20 kilometers east of Moscow, as part of the planned National Aircraft Manufacturing Center.

A 2008 decree by then-President Vladimir Putin ordered the creation of an aviation manufacturing technopark in Zhukovsky, to include the design bureaus of United Aircraft Corporation, Ilyushin, MiG and Sukhoi.

The center, or NAMC, will create 10,000 jobs, said Timur Ivanov, deputy head of the Moscow region government.

In order for the project to be realized, the social, educational and scientific infrastructure has to be created, said Tigran Alexanyan, head of the non-commercial partnership NAMC. Zhukovsky was enlarged by 1,300 hectares in order to host the center.

At the end of 2011, another 886 hectares were purchased to make room for the necessary facilities for the center, as well as housing and commercial buildings. Essentially, a new city of 60,000 people will emerge in this space, Alexanyan said. United Aircraft Corporation confirmed the information.

At the beginning of September, architectural firm John Thompson and Partners presented its three-part concept for the new territory: the innovation park Zhukovsky, with a federal university, technopark and offices; a residential area for workers of the NAMC; and commercial investment projects on an area of 380 hectares. The total space to be built is 3 million square meters, including 2 million square meters of low-rise housing. Total investment is estimated at $4 billion.

Financing for the project is coming from public-private partnerships, while the infrastructure will be built using federal funds. The construction of roads to the main NAMC airfield, where the bi-annual MAKS air show is held, is already being financed.