September the 12th, 2025 – A massive 40 million euro investment is set to forever alter the area around Zagreb Airport, with a hotel and a shopping and business centre on the cards.
As Marija Brnic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes, Zagreb Airport is finally launching a project that will strengthen the entire City of Zagreb as an aviation destination. A public tender has now officially been announced for the selection of investors for the construction of a hotel and a shopping and business centre right next to the airport. The process of selecting businesses or groups of enterprises who will acquire the right to build will take place in two rounds. In the first round, an expression of interest procedure will be carried out, for which bids will be being collected until the 31st of October at 13:00, and after the analysis of the received bids, a second round will follow, in which the selected investors will submit binding bids.
an 18,000 square metre location
The right to build this 40 million euro investment is envisaged on land owned by Zagreb Airport, measuring just over 18 thousand square metres. The land is located next to the buildings of the old Zagreb Airport, outside the area currently under the concession of the modern Franjo Tuđman International Airport. There are currently no buildings built in this area, and the spatial plan of Velika Gorica allows for the construction of a hotel with a maximum capacity of 500 beds, while the maximum height of buildings in this zone is envisaged to be six floors.
The project envisages the construction of an airport hotel in at least the “midscale” category, with accompanying facilities such as a shopping and business centre, various clinics, conference halls, restaurants and so forth. Zagreb Airport has prepared an initial conceptual design, obtained a location permit, and prepared the legal framework for establishing the right to construct there. The contract would be concluded for a period of 50 years, with the possibility of extension for another 49 years on top of it. The value of the entire investment was not specified in the tender, and it was also possible for the investor to offer two models. One such model was for the construction of the future facilities to be realised across phases, which would reduce the initial value of the investment. The construction of the project would start within a year of obtaining the building permit, and be completed no later than three years after the start of construction.
a likely 40 million euro price tag
As for Zagreb Airport’s actual income, the fee for the right to construct on the aforementioned piece of land would be paid through a fixed part. That all depends on the inflation rate at the time, as well as on a variable part, which would be paid in the operational phase of the project in proportion to the income that the project will generate. When evaluating the bids themselves, those that contain a letter of intent from a financial institution that will monitor the implementation of the investment will be considered. They will also need to offer comments on the conceptual design in terms of the hotel concept’s compliance with the standards of the proposed brand, a plan for the dynamics of the investment implementation and a business plan for the first decade.
In addition to the financial value, which will bring 70 percent of the points, the bids will also be evaluated for the quality of the hotel brand and the presence of the hotel chain on the international market and at locations near airports in Europe, as well as the proposed additional facilities for the hotel. That will all bring a maximum of 30 percent of the points. The minimum investment value was not specified in the tender, but from previous statements made by the airport’s director Ranko Ilić, it is estimated that such a project involves an investment of around 40 million euros.
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