Get the project designed
Borya introduced me to Nikita. The same Borya through whom the deal with the Sri Lankan went - the one that fell apart
Nikita was looking for an investor for a project in Weligama www.rayweligama.com , and we talked about development in Sri Lanka. Nikita is a very good architect and entrepreneur himself. He's just launched a food court in Ahangama www.instagram.com/maya_food_court/
Nikita knew the local legislation well and had experience getting building permits; for example, I learned that the building footprint can't exceed 65% of the plot, and every apartment has to come with one parking space. In Moscow they adopted the same rule only this month (August 2026)🙈
We didn't know the height limit. We didn't know the total floor area we could build either. In other words, the two main parameters that the whole economics of the project depends on were unknown at the start.
I asked Nikita to do the design. We spent a long time agreeing on the price, but then I decided we should take the first step: get the PPC — preliminary approval from the UDA — and find out whether we could build there at all😁
To improve the economics, Nikita suggested putting the parking on the plot, then having buyers sign away their parking spaces and building a pool and landscaping in that space instead. The idea made sense – we started designing. I didn't know yet that for the PPC you don't really need to bother much with a design; they would have given us the information we needed anyway.
We got going on the design, tweaked things, redid things, and ended up with a pre-concept design for 7,000 metres and 89 units.
We got the PPC. And from it we learned that we could build 19,000 sq m, and that's not counting parking, i.e. about 24,000 sq m
Meanwhile I went around looking at other construction sites. And I saw that practically everyone puts parking on the lower floors of the complex. Up to 10 floors of it, i.e. floor 1 is the lobby, then 9 floors of parking, and the 11th floor is the first residential one; that's what awaits us in Moscow😉
The footprint in my design is 600 metres, so there's no way to fit parking, and the project could be bigger anyway, with more amenities. Long story short, the design has to be redone.
I spent a decent amount of time and money, but now I know what to do; I bought experience yet again.
In short, we're moving slowly for now, with mistakes and extra costs, but as carefully as possible
How have you paid for experience?
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Nikita was looking for an investor for a project in Weligama www.rayweligama.com , and we talked about development in Sri Lanka. Nikita is a very good architect and entrepreneur himself. He's just launched a food court in Ahangama www.instagram.com/maya_food_court/
Nikita knew the local legislation well and had experience getting building permits; for example, I learned that the building footprint can't exceed 65% of the plot, and every apartment has to come with one parking space. In Moscow they adopted the same rule only this month (August 2026)🙈
We didn't know the height limit. We didn't know the total floor area we could build either. In other words, the two main parameters that the whole economics of the project depends on were unknown at the start.
I asked Nikita to do the design. We spent a long time agreeing on the price, but then I decided we should take the first step: get the PPC — preliminary approval from the UDA — and find out whether we could build there at all😁
To improve the economics, Nikita suggested putting the parking on the plot, then having buyers sign away their parking spaces and building a pool and landscaping in that space instead. The idea made sense – we started designing. I didn't know yet that for the PPC you don't really need to bother much with a design; they would have given us the information we needed anyway.
We got going on the design, tweaked things, redid things, and ended up with a pre-concept design for 7,000 metres and 89 units.
We got the PPC. And from it we learned that we could build 19,000 sq m, and that's not counting parking, i.e. about 24,000 sq m
Meanwhile I went around looking at other construction sites. And I saw that practically everyone puts parking on the lower floors of the complex. Up to 10 floors of it, i.e. floor 1 is the lobby, then 9 floors of parking, and the 11th floor is the first residential one; that's what awaits us in Moscow😉
The footprint in my design is 600 metres, so there's no way to fit parking, and the project could be bigger anyway, with more amenities. Long story short, the design has to be redone.
I spent a decent amount of time and money, but now I know what to do; I bought experience yet again.
But it could have been a lot worse.
What the worst-case scenario could have looked like:
1. I'd have paid for the entire design, which is x5
2. Having spent 5 times more time and money, I wouldn't have changed the design to fit the new PPC inputs
3. I'd have started building, and the economics wouldn't have added up
4. Because the permit documents would show parking rather than a pool, acquiring clients would have cost more
5. Once it was built, someone would have shown up and said: put the parking back
In short, we're moving slowly for now, with mistakes and extra costs, but as carefully as possible
How have you paid for experience?