Lutheran Church Planning Tallinn Skyscraper
Hot on the heels of building a high-value 14-story building on Kentmanni street in Tallinn, the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church is ready to construct a 130-meter high-rise next to the Olümpia hotel.
The skyscraper would have 33 floors of retail space and apartments, and would cast a shadow on the other high-rises in the area, Postimees reported today. The Olümpia hotel is only 84 meters tall, the SEB building around 95 meters, the Radisson Blu building 105 and the Swissotel 117 meters.
Mati Maanas, the head of the church's estates, said the church decided a decade ago that land returned to the church will no longer be sold, but built up.
Besides the Kentmanni building, the church has develop a number of other plots and now rakes in around 850,000 euros in rent annually, a figure which will pass the 1 million mark once the Kentmanni project is completed.
The rental operation is poised to become the organization's largest earner, as membership fees amount to only around 200,000 euros per year, and donations were around 1.3 million in 2012, more than half of which came from the state, Delfi reported in July.