Black Sea Emerald

While many developers wonder how to find buyers for the thousands of apartments in Bansko and on the seaside, others continue to plan future projects. Pioneer Development is rather a company of the second type as the follow-on of its Emerald project is already on the architects’ tables after the first stage of the development received the Building of the Year 2007 Award in the category for holiday resorts.
The complex is situated among some of the most intensively developed territories along the Black Sea coast, between Burgas and Sunny beach, in the southern part of the village of Ravda. Despite this, Emerald has avoided the major problem of the area - overdevelopment - thus managing to position itself in the high end of a market, in which both the cheapest holiday homes from EUR 550-650 per sq m and the most expensive ones that cost between EUR 2,000 and EUR 3,000 per sq m are found.
"The fact that the complex occupies spacious areas is the reason why we managed to avoid overdevelopment. It is different when you deal with small plots," Prof. Dr. Arch. Ognyan Grozev said.
"Our success in this project is the achievement of high town-planning indicators. We developed many apartments, yet at the same time kept the feeling of open spaces," the architect explains. "The urban planning allowed 7 floors in all areas, but just two sections of the development have 7 floors as the front buildings have only ground floors plus two levels above to allow maximum sea views."
The design of the project has been assigned to ASA - Architecture and Construction Association, the firm of Mr. Grozev and his partner Dr. Arch. Kalin Tiholov, and Arch. Evgeni Rafailov, of Four Rays.
Arch. Rafailov also underlines that environment has been vital. The building density of the site is 35%, which makes 12,000 sq m in the first stage of development, he reckons. "Everything else is green areas and waters," Mr. Rafailov explains.
The water, though, is predominant. To this moment Emerald has four stand-alone heated swimming pools, three of which outdoor, with more than 2,400 sq m of water space. These pools are entirely covered with Italian clinker and equipped with Italian and German technologies.
Most of the swimming and water facilities have been designed by Aquatec, the swimming pool, spa and wellness provider, in partnership with Express Garantion, the construction company. They have designed and built the large outdoor pool with water bar and water curtain, a large pool next to the outdoor bar, VIP pool, children pool; installed the hydro-insulation and coating of the indoor pool; as well as the water attractions with cascade effects - artificial river and breeding-pond.
The complex features designer interior walls made of German glass tiles Solaris Sahara Flamish. These are used to separate rooms without the use of additional sources of natural light and have been built by Corel 67.
The developers and architects are also proud of the preserved greenery in the region, part of a former large pioneer camp. "We ended up with the decision to remove part of the trees, to store them at a depot temporarily and later bring them back to their places," Mr. Grozev says. In one or two years the park is expected to be restored entirely to its former beauty. About 200 plants have been preserved, some of which 75-80 years old.
The irrigation system and the pump station are produced by Rain Bird and provided by Bulgarian company Ditek.
The holiday resort boasts unique spa, the only one of the Taman Sari Royal Heritage SPA brand in Bulgaria so far. Eight Indonesian specialists work there.
Besides the spa, the complex has also 6 bars and restaurants, day nursery, boutiques and other services.
There are three symbolic ‘emeralds’ included in the project in the shape of glass vaults in the main building. One of them provides natural light for the Cigar Bar, based on the top floor, and the other two let light through atriums to all levels to the restaurant and the pool on the ground floor.
Occupying 150,000 sq m of land, the Emerald Resort has been designed to be a 5-star, premium class gated club with well-developed infrastructure. It consists of 5 stand-alone buildings with total area of 79,546 sq m, 57,774 sq m of which are apartments. The apartments comprise 778 luxury residential units for sale varying in size from studios to three-bedroom.
Emerald Resort is just the first stage of a larger project, which is yet to be developed. However, sales of units will take place in a difficult market environment as some of the major groups of buyers in Bulgaria have thinned away and new ones come with different requirements.
"Yes, our plans have already been influenced, but rather due to the specific expectations of clients, not as a result of the market slowdown," Mr. Ivan Mihailov, Marketing and Sales Manager of the complex, says. "I believe our estimate is correct and so far everything proves this, as we continue to enjoy great interest and sales under the current holdbacks in the holiday homes market."