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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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I would like the lines below to look not like a commercial ad. Instead I wish to present what could become the first small step towards the creation of a new business environment in the Bulgarian capital city of Sofia. So I won't mention the names of the companies participating in the project called "Business Park Sofia". Some of them are known worldwide and they don't need any particular commercial. Others are so small and unknown that don't deserve even to be mentioned by name. I will stress on the project itself.

Almost 2 million sq. feet of office, retail and warehouse spaces for rent are scheduled to be finished in the next 6 years. The phase one of some 300 000 sq. feet will be completed by the end of May 2002. The first step of the phase one - the 100 000 sq. feet hypermarket for consumer electronics has to be finished by the end of November 2001.

All this doesn't sound very impressive given the size of many other similar projects in Europe, not to mention the business parks in the USA (they are called "parks" but some of them are indeed whole new cities within cities).

During the last 12 years since the end of the communist rule in Bulgaria most of the major commercial (office and retail) projects in Sofia were concentrated in the city center. They included the renovation of some of the landmark retail spaces (ZUM, Halls), as well as the new construction of small office buildings. All these projects had something in common - the limits of the space, the lack of expanding possibilities. Four years ago a German retail chain decided to settle not in or around the center like many others but to build its hypermarkets in the suburbs. Other companies followed its example but these too remained projects without a whole concept of major land development with possible expansion in the future.

It seemed that Sofia would preserve for an indefinite period its functional structure where the offices are situated mainly in the center and the businesspersons are obliged to move regularly up-and-down. This situation looked bearable some years ago when the number of cars in the city was 200 000 (with population of 1 million). Today when the car "population" equals the living persons in the city, it's almost impossible not only to find any empty lot for parking in the center, but also even to get there by car in the working days.

Something had to be done and quickly. The project of Sofia Business Park is an attempt to move offices out of the smoggy and traffic jammed city to a more suitable and pleasant place near the mountains Vitosha. Already many expatriates among the foreign businesspersons have rented houses in the small villages surrounding the mountains so the business park will provide them with next-door office facilities.

But far more important of the actual size of the park is the possibility of expanding it to the new empty territories south of Sofia. The park is situated on the main road from Europe to Turkey. It will provide facilities to every businessperson with plans in the region without forcing him to rent space in the city center. It would be cheaper (rent), cleaner (air) and faster (travel). I hope that this project won't be an isolate example of how the business has to be accommodated in the 21st century. I wish this could turn into a permanent development of the spaces around Sofia that had been neglected for so many years.

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