There is an ongoing discussion in Gdansk concerning the development of the area where the ‘Manhattan’ shopping centre is located today. The investor would like to demolish the building and replace it with a new one. Possibly this would be a 120 m high skyscraper.
The private investor who owns the plot on Grunwaldzka Avenue has already submitted a request to the office for approval of plans to build such a tall building. This proposal became an item discussed by councillors during the last session. Agnieszka Wąsowska – Telenga, a resident of Upper Wrzeszcz, attended the meeting and expressed her negative opinion of the plans to build a tall building.
A mock-up was already presented during a workshop organised with residents in November 2023, which showed an apartment building over 100 metres high on Grunwaldzka Avenue.
The deputy mayor of Gdansk for sustainable development and investment, Piotr Grzelak, asserted that he would not agree to such a tall development and pointed out that in this location the height of new buildings must not exceed 30 metres:
There is no chance of accepting such a proposal from the investor. The estimated maximum height at this location will be 30 metres. We will certainly not allow a monolithic residential development either. There should be services at this location. We will secure a service function for this area in the future local development plan,” said Piotr Grzelak during Thursday’s session.
The deputy mayor added that in recent years, the office has received a number of requests to increase the permitted height for planned developments along Grunwaldzka Avenue. Some of these concerned the ‘Manhattan’ area. As a result, the city decided to suspend work on the zoning plans for the area in order to analyse the issue in more depth and introduce comprehensive solutions.
During the above-mentioned workshop, residents explicitly expressed their opposition to buildings higher than 30 metres in the area of today’s ‘Manhattan’. This was helped by a special mock-up, on which the buildings were marked in different colours.
Different elements were introduced on it, which were presented in three colours. Yellow was used to mark what is written in the local zoning plan, blue was used to mark the investors’ proposals, including those concerning ‘Manhattan’, and red was used to mark the directions of the changes we were working on, ‘ explained Professor Lorens, Architect of the City of Gdańsk.
Loading ...source: UM Gdańsk
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