“Glendale Hills” is also doing construction work in the 9700 square meter area near the Yerevan wine factory. Rumor has it that this is one of the companies that “goes by the name of a foreign company” to avoid paying taxes and present themselves as Armenian contractors. In this case, they are American contractors.
In contrast to the buildings on Northern Avenue, “Glendale Hills” is selling 1 square meter of the apartments for 700 dollars. The area is considered to the be the heart of Yerevan and will turn into a elite neighborhood. However, the company does have the “right” to sell 1 square meter for 1,000-1200 dollars. The alternative is to have apartments with 42, 47, 52 and 75 square meters. Until now, the apartments of elite buildings haven’t had a surface area less than 100 square meters. Whereas now a citizen pays the amount while construction is going on, later that citizen will have to pay 700 dollars for 1 square meter. It’s not bad when you look at it from first sight. You can own an elite apartment for 40-60,000 dollars, while you have to pay 100,000 just to get an apartment on Northern Avenue in Yerevan.
“Citizens come to us asking for a one bedroom apartment in the heart of the city. This elite building doesn’t give that opportunity. Married couples are usually the ones that ask for small apartments. So, we decided to give our customers that opportunity,” says owner of “Glendale Hills” Edik Melikyan.
Construction of “Glendale Hills” is underway. The contractors are probably selling the apartments for a low price because they want to get a lot of money since they don’t have much to complete construction. Citizens suddenly feel like purchasing apartments beforehand while they still have a chance. But on the other hand, one question remains: how come a citizen can buy an apartment for that much here and pay a different amount on Northern Avenue? Perhaps Northern Avenue sounds more attractive? But let’s not forget that both spots are located in the heart of Yerevan. The area near the wine factory is freer and the view of Ararat is better there, which is very important for an Armenian from the Diaspora. It’s clear that the contractors earn big profits from this.
There is a certain standard price for construction: 350 dollars for 1 square meter, plus taxes. Basically, you can get a lot of profit by selling 1 square meter for 700 dollars. What’s the matter? You can even get along fine with 250 dollars, of course, for 1 square meter and do good construction business. By selling 1 square meter for 1000-1200 dollars, the 600-700 dollars goes to the contractor. In other words, the elite building contractor wants to get double the amount he puts in for construction.
It’s quite possible that “Glendale Hills” is selling its apartments at “cheap” prices due to the fact that the prices for real estate are going down. But the state cadastre contradicts that.
Question: isn’t “Glendale Hills” afraid of the “elite building giants”, including head of president Robert Kocharyan’s administrative staff Armen Gevorgyan, who is selling his apartments two times less. Since there are no free market relations in Armenia and any field of economy is under control, and prices are fixed by the higher authorities , the giant elite building contractors will simply do away with the “American selfish” contractor. However, contractor E. Melikyan hasn’t been under pressure yet. It appears that the American owner of “Glendale Hills” is either an oligarch that isn’t pressured in Armenia or a high deputy official. The residents of Buzand street, who know who’s who, assure that the owner of “Glendale Hills” is Minister of Justice of Armenia David Harutyunyan. His brother Vahan Hovhannisyan’s law firm is most probably taking care of the legalities of one of the contractors constructing a section on Northern Avenue. Others claim that “Glendale Hills” belongs to vice director of the National Security Services Grigori Harutyunyan. Perhaps he is also tied to the construction carried out by another “Griar” company.
In any case, there is still competition for prices. It’s hard to believe that both David and Grigori Harutyunyan are going at the same pace and are not afraid of a little competition. But Edik Melikyan assures that his company didn’t have any problems when making the transaction. The contractor has offered the residents of the street new apartments with the same surface area. E. Melikyan says that they sold the section of the Buzand street the same way. But resident of Buzand street Emma Tunyan says that she was only offered 32,000 dollars for her newly remodeled 90 square meter house, studio and 200 square meter land property.
“My house was remodeled well with new windows and expensive metal constructions. They didn’t let me at least take my windows and doors so I could sell them myself. Edik Melikyan’s father didn’t leave one rock or wood; he destroyed the whole thing and sold it. They were doing whatever they felt like doing and it seemed as though they had back up. They gave a little more than 400,000 dollars for the 25 families living in the area. David Harutyunyan’s brother Vahan paid a little more to the families living in our neighborhood because they were distant relatives. As for us, we have appealed to the European Court. We lost our case in all three courts of Armenia. The judges simply told us to calm down and go along with the order from above,” says Mrs. Tunyan.
As for E. Melikyan, he says that the company had offered that family 73,000 dollars to move out and says that anything Mrs. Tunyan says shouldn’t be paid attention to.
“But how could I leave my newly remodeled house within five days? I had to pay 10% tax from that money. Can I really buy a 90 square meter land and more than a 200 square meter home in the heart of the city for 66,000 dollars?” says Mrs. Tunyan.
This story is kind of complicated, but the offer is not that bad. “168 Hours” told E. Melikyan that the Buzand residents believed that the owner of “Glendale Hills” is Minister of Justice David Harutyunyan, to which he replied:
“I would be happy if it belonged to David Harutyunyan, but unfortunately, it’s mine. It would be a pleasure to work with him.” He also denied that it belonged to G. Harutyunyan.