MERKO projects won as many as 2 awards in the competition of Lithuanian Real Estate Development Association (LNTPA) and the Sustainable Development Academy ‘For Sustainable Development’.
The best real estate projects in Lithuania for 2021 were announced and awarded at the ceremony. The Lithuanian Real Estate Development Association (LNTPA) and the Sustainable Development Academy have been organising the ‘For Sustainable Development competition’ for 14 years.
In the ‘For Sustainable Development’ competition, Vilnelės Slėnis was recognised as the best residential project in Lithuania. The Balsiai School, built and still maintained and managed by MERKO, received the exclusive Golden Award of the competition – the best of the best real estate projects from 2007 to 2020. For the first time, the elections were held to choose the projects and companies that not only won the main prize of the competition ‘For Sustainable Development’, but also deservedly maintained high standards of quality facility maintenance during their lifetime.
The Vilnelės Slėnis project was one of the first projects the construction of which gave impetus to the renaissance and growth of the Markučiai area. “When we launched the project, we believed there would be a growing demand for modern and high-quality housing in this part of the city. Today, the image of the district has changed beyond recognition, and this area of Vilnius has already become a lively urban area – with reconstructed Manufaktūrų Street, installed pedestrian and bicycle paths, and new sports and leisure spaces emerged. We are pleased to see how the area near the Vilnelė River and Belmontas Forest is becoming an attractive area to live in”, says Saulius Putrimas, CEO of UAB Merko Statyba.
The Balsiai School is one of the first successful models of Private and Public Partnership (PPP) in Lithuania. Under the partnership agreement, the company provided all the equipment for the school, from benches and blackboards to kitchen utensils for technology lessons. It will maintain the school until 2035 and then hand it over to the municipality for free. The school still amazes visitors who find it hard to believe that this is what it looks like when almost a thousand children are studying, running and playing every day”, said S. Putrimas.
Mindaugas Statulevičius, Head of the LNTPA and Chairman of the For Sustainable Development Competition Commission, while evaluating the projects participating in this year’s competition, expressed his satisfaction that competitive progress and the necessity of sustainable development are becoming a daily routine for many Lithuanian property developers: “The qualitative challenges that developers are posing to themselves, and the successful implementation of these challenges are encouraging. It remains to be hoped that these trends will only gain further momentum in the context of sustainable real estate development. Many of the entrants are very serious projects that have demonstrated breakthroughs and resilience to the challenges of the business environment in 2020-2021”, says the LNTPA President.
The contestants were evaluated by a 9-member jury comprising of representatives from the Lithuanian Builders Association, banks, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, the Ministry of the Environment, Vilnius City Municipality, the Lithuanian Real Estate Development Association and the media.