Already in the end of September the hotel chain plan to present the design plans for the hotel to the town administration of Murmansk, TV21.ru reports. The reconstruction is planned to start in the beginning of 2010, and the hotel will be ready to receive its first guests in mid-2011.
Azimut Hotels owns eight hotels in different parts of Russia, their web site reads.
Hotel Arktika, the 16 floor high landmark in the middle of Murmansk, was built in 1983 and originally had 1030 beds. The hotel was closed and reconstruction of the building started over four years ago, but all work in the building had come to a complete halt. For half a year, the building was used as an enormous advertising board, but the posters were removed sometime this spring.
Administration in Murmansk owns of 50 percent of the stocks in the building. As BarentsObserver reported, in June the town administration gave its partners strict notice that if reconstruction work was not resumed within a short time, the building will be expropriated and made into living quarters for foreigners involved in the development of the Shtokman gas field.
