State buildings evacuated by government agencies in Moscow to become hotels

Moscow plans to transform state buildings into hotels after the government agencies currently occupying them will have moved to a new part of the town that it will acquire from the Moscow Region. Marat Khusnullin, the deputy Moscow mayor overseeing urban policy, said such a move will, in addition to freeing the center of traffic jams, also help resolve the problem of hotel deficit. 

However, hoteliers, in contrast to architects who have welcomed the proposal, greeted the policy with skepticism. “Transforming these buildings into hotels is easy. But the new hotels will be empty, and this will kill the hotel market,” GOST Hotel Management CEO Sergei Kolesnikov noted.