Large-scale restructuring processes in the urban space of Budapest

even a ban on new office developments was in force in order to keep out the traffic which they wouldhave generated. The first new commercial projects that appeared in the Dowtown were some Westernhotel-chains at strategic points as the Danube or Kálvin Square in the 1980s.Centre of Budapest (Downtown, Lipótváros with Erzsébetváros) and Március 15. SquareAlready in the early 1990s international companies started to raise demand for good quality officespace for their employees, later for their headquarters. In these years the target area of officedevelopment was restricted to Pest’s Downtown (5 th district) and to some areas within the GrandBouleward and in Central Buda. Nevertheless, the transformation of the centrally located areas of Pestinto a real CBD is a rather multifold and slow process. As there are only few infill sites and since alsohere the majority of flats in the better quality multi-story buildings were bought by the sitting tenants,the conversions or new building on cleared sites can be carried out only after the “buying out” andcompensating the individual owners of the condominiums. Another gradual process is that smallerlocal and foreign companies (private consultant firms, architectural studios, dentists, lawyers etc.) buyonly single or next-door dwellings in condominiums, in some cases a total floor. (Their settling downin old buildings usually furthers renovation because of their capacities to pay higher sums into thecommon budget of the condominium.) As in the 1990s the demand for up-to-date quality rental officespace fast increased the yearly production of new office space has increased from 20-30 thousandsquare metres in the first years after the changes up to 70 thousand in 1997. After 2000 the yearlyproduction exceeded 180 thousand, in the last years it dropped to about 100-120 thousand. At presentBudapest’s good quality office space amounts to about one and half million square metres.These processes have generally been promoted by the affected district governments, especially by the5 th district. There a successful public space improvement program at the leading catholic church ofBudapest (“Basilika”) gave an additional stimulus to the refurbishment activities and to a radicalchange of the cityscape with a growing number of first class restaurants and pubs. (Also the CentralEuropean University moved to this district after refurbishing and interconnecting two old residentialbuildings.) As seen in chapter 7 the extension of the CBD was the original plan in the 7 th district aswell but there the concept changed substantially in the late 1990s. Recently large-scale refurbishmentoperations are going on close to the traditional shopping street (Váci Street) of Budapest thanks to agood co-operation between the district government and some leading developers and investors.However, Figure 4 and Table 3 indicates that the strengthening of CBD functions has not beenrestricted to the traditional urban centre of Budapest: from the 94 new “A” category officedevelopments only 54 is found in the central districts of Pest, while 33 is located in Buda. After 1990conversion of some old industrial buildings to medium quality offices started along “outer” Váci street(13 th district, chapter 4.2) together with new constructions on abandoned industrial sites. In the sameperiod Inner Buda (1 st and 2 nd and also 11 th district close to the principal motorways) started toprovide attractive locations for high prestige developments.18