Securing Maardu estate for presidential use would be too expensive
State-owned real estate management company Riigi Kinnisvara AS (RKAS) is not interested in acquiring the Maardu estate as securing it for the purposes of hosting functions representing the state would cost too much.
"RKAS has no interest in the Maardu estate at the moment," RKAS spokesperson Madis Idnurm told BNS regarding the property located just outside of Tallinn. "RKAS conducted an in-depth examination of the Maardu estate in summer 2016 in the course of which it became clear that adapting it to meet the requirements applicable for the residence of the president would broadly cost as much as the reconstruction of the Liberty estate complex situated in Rocca al Mare."
Idnurm noted that it would not be possible to implement a modern security concept in Maardu for a reasonable amount of money and that the solutions would prove expensive, which would make taking the Maardu estate into use more expensive and problematic than doing the same with the Liberty estate.
The Maardu estate currently belongs to the Bank of Estonia, which has listed it for sale for €1.5 million after initially listing the property at €2 million two years prior.
"The indicative selling price is still €1.49 and the real estate agent hired by the Bank of Estonia to sell [the estate] is currently in negotiations with a couple of parties interested in buying," Bank of Estonia spokesperson Viljar Rääsk told BNS. "We spoke with the Ministry of Finance and RKAS about the Maardu estate in 2015, but it was revealed then that the state is not interested in buying the estate. As a lot of time has passed since that proposal and, among other things, the price has changed and parties with concrete interest in buying have emerged, the Bank of Estonia made a new offer to the same effect to the state this week."
As the Office of the President announced earlier this month that it will not have the seaside Liberty estate in Tallinn's Rocca al Mare neighborhood reconstructed for use as the presidential residence, the government must now decide what to do with the complex.
In the coming months, the Ministry of Finance will explore together with RKAS opportunities to make the best possible use of the estate. Before a possible decision to privatize the property is made, the possibility of rebuilding it for use by some other public sector institution, as well as the expediency of mothballing the buildings, will first be considered, ministry spokesperson Kristina Haavala said.
Once these possibilities have been explored, the government will thereafter decide which of them to pursue.
Editor: Aili Vahtla
Source: BNS
