Lofty aspirations

A new loft in Zyrardow by architect Justyna Smolec

A decade ago, it would have taken a visionary to see much of a future in Zyrardow, a town of 40,000 about 50km west of Warsaw, the Polish capital: the local linen mills had gone bankrupt, unemployment had soared, and the main road through town was clogged with trucks trying to avoid traffic jams in the capital. Even the mayor, Andrzej Wilk, admits: “You had to run through the parks at night they were so unsafe.”

But now, the collapse of the textile industry is proving to be an advantage: the red-brick factories and workers’ houses were made to last. They survived the war and 45 years of neglect under the communists, and now form the basis of the town’s revival as a bedroom community of Warsaw. The town is even applying for inclusion on Unesco’s world heritage list because of its industrial architecture.

After the factories went bust in the 1990s, they were auctioned off for derisory sums. For several years the buildings wasted away. Scavengers ripped cables from the walls, stripped frames from windows and pulled up metal roofs to sell for scrap. What saved them was Poland’s real estate market, which began to surge prior to the country’s 2004 entry into the European Union. As prices began to rise, the prospect of redeveloping old industrial buildings suddenly became more interesting.

Krzysztof Sylwanowicz and Boguslaw Fusiek, owners of a development company called Green Development, had built themselves houses not far from Zyrardow and noticed the potential lurking in the ruined factories. In 2006 they bought the largest – the gigantic 130-metre-long New Linen Spinning Plant built in 1913 – to convert into lofts. At about the same time, another developer, Piotr Blazejewski, bought the next-door Old Linen Plant, built in the 1830s, and also began to turn it into lofts.

The views, and the 4.7-metre-high ceilings, have already attracted the interest of both Polish and foreign buyers, eager to get in on what could be one of Poland’s more interesting real estate developments.

For the moment, Zyrardow itself may not be much of a head-turner. The town is still on the main transit route around Warsaw. “We’re hoping that the ring road is completed by next year,” says Wilk. Once the ring road is open, and the nearby highway to Warsaw is completed, the capital should be less than an hour’s drive away.

Even more crucial to Zyrardow is the train. The commuter train takes just more than half an hour to get into central Warsaw. Once the line is upgraded in the next two years, a trip into the heart of the capital should take less than 20 minutes. While Warsaw is close, so is a national forest, just minutes away, as are national monuments such as Zelazowa Wola, the small manor house where Chopin was born. “If not for the railroad, I would have never thought of buying in Zyrardow,” says Marek Witaszewski, a Warsaw architect who has bought a 75 sq metre loft. “It has potential – in 10 years Zyrardow could be a real pearl.”

For Witaszewski, the price made the idea of living in Zyrardow even more interesting. For the 500,000 zlotys (£103,000) he paid for his loft, he could have bought a 40 sq metre apartment in a good area of Warsaw and a 60 sq metre apartment in a bad one. The price for Green Development’s lofts range from 6,500 zlotys to 7,500 zlotys per sq metre, depending on the storey. At the beginning of this year Green Development raised its prices by 10 per cent and has not noticed a drop in sales; 65 of the 85 lofts it is building have been sold, while the neighbouring development has sold 64 out of 79 lofts. Although most buyers are Poles, the redevelopment of Zyrardow is drawing foreign interest.

Derek Ryan, an Irish IT specialist now working in London, was persuaded to buy because of the town’s unique architectural heritage, as well as the ease of getting into Warsaw. “The initial price wasn’t too high and I could see down the road that I would be able to sell or rent it to locals,” he says.

Beata Bartosiewicz, a local real estate agent, says that a 50 sq metre conventional apartment sells for about 250,000 zlotys, 10 per cent below what it would have fetched at the peak of the boom in 2007.

If the loft developments are to succeed, the whole town must be renovated. Developers are planning for retail space and restaurants, sorely lacking. Also, care must be taken not to exclude locals, who may resent being unable to afford space in the most attractive parts of town.

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Details

Stara przedzalnia staraprzedzalnia@staraprzedzalnia.pl tel: +48 606296178

Green Development m.wojciechowicz@greendevelopment.eu tel: +48 46 855 35 90

Beata Bartosiewicz, Centrum real estate agency tel: +48 46 855 81 46

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Palatial living

Palace Cielesnica

If panoramic, postindustrial loft-dwelling fails to whet your property palate, there are more beguiling residences just a stone’s throw away from the ruggedness of Zyrardow, writes Luke Sampson.

Palace Cielesnica is set on 9ha of land including 4.5ha of parkland and 1.7ha of ponds. It includes a 19th-century orangery, farm buildings, a distillery, brewery, oil mill and brick factory. The palace is flanked at both sides by parkland containing oak and elm trees dating back 200 years. £720,000

For more palatial residences in Poland, ranging from £1.3m to £5m, see the following agents:

Kaza Nieruchomosci Zabytkowe www.kaza.com.pl; tel: +48 (0)601 65 19 29

Dolana www.dolana.pl; tel: +48 (0)692 36 85 90

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Buying property in Poland: Doors have opened and will open wider

There are no restrictions on foreigners buying Polish houses or apartments but permission to buy agricultural land is more difficult. As of 2009, European Union and European Economic Area nationals no longer need to obtain a permit before buying a second residential property. When Poland joined the EU in 2004, it received an opt-out on the sale of agricultural land and forests to foreigners. Foreigners have to obtain permission from the ministry of the interior to buy agricultural land, and many investors get around this by buying through a local partner. Restrictions on EU nationals buying Polish farmland expire in 2016. Non-EU and EEA nationals still need permission before buying any real estate.

There are no entry and exit taxes, although investors will have to pay taxes on any gains from their real estate investment. Poland does have some complications stemming from unresolved ownership issues originating during communist-era confiscations. This is especially true in Warsaw, where many properties have claims filed by the heirs of prewar owners.

Agents’ fees are typically 3.54 per cent of the gross sale price paid by both the seller and the buyer, although the fees are negotiable.

JC