Glancing from the street, one wonders: who, in their right mind, would cough up over €5,000 for a square metre at Kentmanni St 6? Climbing up the makeshift stairs in the elevator shaft, with each storey the price makes more sense – this is Tallinn’s best view and top spot.
Under supervision and without endangering life too much, one may currently climb up to the 12th floor of the 14 storey house. From there, the most exclusive apartments offer view of entire Tallinn, almost. On an overly frosty day, a foreign guest might be treated to an Old Town tour without leaving home: all the important churches, towers and skyscrapers are in plain sight.
With a price that high, one might think it’s only the wealthy foreigner who buys a home here; even so, as assured by the developer Merko Ehitus Eesti's dwelling development marketing chief Simar Selezov, there’s many an Estonian eye on the flats. In the house to be completed by year’s end, 85 per cent of apartments are sold. To Mr Selezov’s knowledge, about half of these have been purchased to dwell in; the rest have been bought to be sold on or rented out.
«The house has got 93 flats; of these, ten are still available at the moment. The square metre of the most expensive one stands at €5,150, the cheapest at €3,240,» says Mr Selezov. «The price is mainly linked to the view, size, cardinal point, and whether or not the apartment has a balcony,» he adds. Due to houses all around being lower, the panoramic view starts at flats on sixth and seventh floors.