The “Second Quarter” of Ligovsky City is part of a large-scale project aimed at renovating the Volkovskaya industrial estate, which is part of the still wider “gray belt” of St Petersburg. The central part of the belt is renovated by Glorax Development, a company, popularly known for its Golden City housing complex that it built on the alluvial land of the Vasilyevsky Island. Ligovsky City is a still more ambitious project of the scale worthy of Peter the Great, and, hence, utopian to a certain point.

The Third City

The project dates back to the competition 2016 that was organized by the Committee for Architecture and Town Planning of St Petersburg: the contestants were offered to develop concepts for renovating the industrial territories lying beyond the Bypass Channel, and come up with detailed guidelines for developing three pilot sites. According to the judging panel, for the Volkovskaya industrial estate the best work was submitted by MLA+, a Dutch architectural company that already has its own branch in St Petersburg. Glorax asked MLA+ to further develop the concept to the level of a master plan – and this is how Ligovsky City came about.

According to the idea proposed by MLA+, between St Petersburg (to which the historical refers), and Leningrad (which spreads beyond the Ligovsky Avenue), a “third city” may appear – modern and comfortable, connected with nature and the history of this place, eventful and diverse. The architects propose to divide the entire territory, about 100 hectares in size, into 14 blocks, 4 squares, and 4 park spaces. Each city block is special and is designed for groups of residents with a different lifestyle – conditionally speaking, family, business, and creative peopleб which, come to think of it, is a little bit reminiscent of Sloboda settlements, only in the new reality. The promotional video explains the concept in a very comprehensible and optimistic way.



Place of the Second Quarter in the “Third City”

To design and build some parts of the construction on the basis of the MLA+ concept, Glorax Development invited different architects. In 2017, A-Len architects started working on the project for the second quarter – its construction was completed in2020.

The developers are moving from west to east: the first (and the earliest) quarter of Ligovsky City was designed and built by A Architects on the opposite side of the avenue, while for the next stage of development of the Third City, comparatively recently still another project was approved, which, in turn, is located on the east side, on the extensive territory of the former Tovarno-Vitebskaya railway station; work on this site is also done with input from A-Len in cooperation with the Dutch KCAP and Orange. However, recently it was announced that part of this territory can be sold to another developer, which may alter all the current plans. 

Let’s get back to the second quarter of Ligovsky City, however. It has been fully designed by A-Len architects and put into operation at the end of 2020. Currently, the work on land organization is being completed.