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The Dega Cluster Noginsk industrial park looks a lot like a Lego model. Red, blue, gray and orange box-like buildings dot 140 hectares of green landscape, while structures with silver pipes and towers pop up throughout the park.

Located in the Moscow region, about 34 kilometers east of Moscow and near the city of Noginsk, the park is partly operational, partly under construction, with buildings still going up.

The fast-approaching future for the Dega site is expected to include manufacturing and logistics centers for both Russian and international companies — as well as a village of residential cottages, bicycle lanes and a McDonald's fast-food restaurant.

The park is 90 percent finished and has 20 residents, three-fourths of which are foreign companies. Multinational cosmetics giant Oriflame, for instance, is building what will be its largest factory worldwide in Noginsk.

"It's European-style, neat and colorful," said Gabriel Gantner, director of Dega, the Swiss developer that owns the Noginsk industrial park and is handling its construction.

Taking a Tour

"This could be a model for industrial parks all over the country," Gantner said during a tour of the park for an REQ reporter and photographer. The park generates its own electricity and heat and treats its own water supply on the premises, he said.

Though many industrial parks in Russia aren't as well-maintained or well-financed as the Noginsk park, there is no shortage of this type of commercial real estate, and the numbers of both industrial parks and technoparks in Russia are on the rise.

In 2010, the number of industrial parks increased 15 percent, and there are now more than 200 parks that have attracted Russian and foreign residents, according to a March report by global consulting firm Ernst & Young. Also last year, about half of all industrial park projects in Russia went from the proposal stage to engineering drafts.

Deals can be massive. In the largest transaction in the industrial park segment during the first half of 2011, Grove International Partners sold South Gate Industrial Park to a pool of investors for nearly $100 million, Property magazine reported in August. The investor-purchasers included the Czech investment fund PPF and Giffels Management Russia managing director Christopher Van Riet.

The government is spearheading the rise of industrial and techno parks by creating special economic zones where companies can set up their production facilities while paying decent rent and avoiding many of the bureaucratic hassles common to Russian enterprise.

Many foreign companies want to enter Russia's developing market but are afraid of setting up production facilities in the country, Yulia Stefanishina, a Moscow analyst with Ernst & Young, said in an interview. In fact, most industrial park residents are foreign companies, she said.

It costs more to build a factory in an industrial park than on a regular plot of land, but the parks have advantages. They offer international companies a means of getting around Russia's administrative hurdles and corruption by giving companies an established business partner. The parks usually provide all services, such as water, electricity, gas and maintenance.

Industrial parks are among the most dynamic real estate sectors, said Vyacheslav Yurchenko, a vice president with Moscow-based Espro Development, which is developing the A-Park industrial park in Kaluga and the Vostochny Industrial Park in Noginsk.

"Russia continues to be fundamentally attractive for many companies that are actively expanding their business, including those that are building their manufacturing facilities and logistics centers in industrial parks," Yurchenko said by e-mail.

Industrious Sites

An industrial park is a large plot of land that is developed and equipped for manufacturing, typically for companies in two or more different manufacturing sectors. The parks typically have a modest amount of office and warehouse space. Some boast housing, hotels, restaurants and entertainment facilities.

Industrial parks are a relatively new phenomenon in Russia, with most projects in the planning stage or under construction. There are about 200 parks at least partially operating in Russia, according to the Ernst & Young report. By comparison, there are about 400 industrial parks in Germany, Denis Zhuravsky, executive director of the Moscow-based Association of Industrial Parks, said in an interview.

The Dega site is an exception in Russia, with brand-new buildings constructed according to ecological standards. Meanwhile, most of the country's industrial parks are located near former Soviet factories, and developers or companies that want to build factories there connect to old water and electricity infrastructure and use dilapidated facilities, Zhuravsky said.

About a quarter of Russia's industrial parks are located in the Moscow region, while the rest are in central Russia. Projects in the Moscow, Leningrad and Kaluga regions are showing the highest demand, since those regions have track records of cooperation between investors and regional administrations, Yurchenko said.

Also in the Central Federal District, the Dega firm is developing an industrial park in the city of Ryazan, where the mayor is especially cooperative, Gantner said.

But the Kaluga Special Economic Zone is an especially busy place. Espro is planning its two new parks in the region, a special economic zone and a center of Russian automotive manufacturing. So it is no surprise that the region's Grabtsevo industrial park is tailored to carmakers and manufacturers of auto parts. The first section of the park was opened to businesses in 2011.

Together with the Kaluga Region Development Corporation, Espro is helming Grabtsevo's A-Park project, a 200-hectare zone near a production facility for German carmaker Volkswagen.

The V-Park will be inside Kaluga's Rosva industrial park, where the main resident is PSMA Rus, a joint venture between French carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen and Japanese carmaker Mitsubishi Motors. The first building in V-Park will probably be a 14,000-square-meter factory for Faurecia Interior Systems, Yurchenko said.

The French auto parts producer "has been contracted by PSA Peugeot-Citroen to supply interior systems parts" for the PSMA Rus factory, as well as "to deliver parts to" Avtoframos, according to a May press release by Colliers International, Faurecia's real estate representative for the deal. Renault makes cars for sale in Russia at Moscow's Avtoframos plant.

Colliers said Faurecia is planning to occupy the V-Park premises in November and begin delivering parts to its customers by early 2012.

Coming to Russia

The rise of industrial parks is tied to the increasing number of foreign companies that are setting up manufacturing in Russia, either because doing so is more efficient than importing finished products or because the Russian federal government is pressuring companies to make products here.

Russian's retail market has grown, while taxes on imports are high and distributors are often unreliable, experts said.

About 10 years ago, electronics giants were importing their products into Russia. Now the pendulum has swung the other way. In an example that has been repeated by medicine, car, electronics and other manufacturers, Samsung built a factory several years ago in Russia, in the Kaluga region southwest of Moscow.

"Many companies are following Samsung's path," Zhuravsky noted.

Joint ownership with a regional government, or a partnership with one, can allow developers to establish and operate an industrial park more smoothly, since it is easier to create new infrastructure — such as service roads connecting the park to highways, or hookups for electricity — if the local government is directly involved. Typically, business parks are run by companies that handle relations with local administrations and residents and then develop the project.

As more industrial parks come on the real estate market, the overall quality of the parks is increasing, Zhuravsky said. Meanwhile, the competition among parks is heightening. Companies increasingly are advertising their parks at trade shows and exhibitions, where potential investors might be in attendance.

Manufacturers and designers aren't the only beneficiaries of the parks. Regional governments — and their budgets — also can get a big boost from the parks. Both industrial and technological parks, or technoparks, can bolster development. As industry in a region grows, the supporting infrastructure — transportation, hotels, housing and shopping centers — also expands, Yurchenko said.

"We are practically laying the foundation for the region's development," Yurchenko said.

Technoparks, which typically are office parks built up around facilities for innovative technologies, don't produce as much profit as industrial parks, experts said.

Developers usually build the parks, then find the tenants for them. Manufacturing facilities and logistics centers are constructed using the "built to suit" approach, which means that construction is done according to the demands of the future tenant.

For a manufacturer looking to set up a factory in a Russian industrial park, the process is straightforward. First, a company must find the right park for its facilities. Putting a factory in an industrial park often spares the company time and headaches from dealing with corrupt local officials and red tape.

If You Build It...

After the developer and client agree on where to place buildings and other components such as parking lots and storage, the construction begins.

Foreign companies prefer to build in industrial parks where all services, such as roads, electricity, maintenance and sometimes personnel recruitment, are provided. Russian companies prefer to do everything themselves, Dega's Gantner said.

In Russia, the services offered by industrial parks range from minimal, such maintaining engineering systems, to handling construction, attracting investors and development, to hiring, catering, cleaning and leasing.

 Most industrial parks serve medium-sized companies to which they rent manufacturing space. There are two types of industrial parks: "Greenfields" are basically plots of land with electricity, gas and water connections and service roads. A company works with the developer to make the land into a manufacturing zone.

"Brownfields" are parks that are already built up, with the manufacturing facilities in basic box-like buildings. The developer rents out the buildings, generally to light manufacturers in the food and retail sectors. There are more brownfields than greenfields, said Zhuravsky of the Association of Industrial Parks.

Industrial parks range in size from roughly 17 acres to more than 1,000 acres. Russian industrial parks are much bigger than their counterparts abroad, Ernst & Young found. There are 10 government-owned parks in Russia that cover more than 1,000 hectares. Privately owned parks are considerably smaller, however, at 100 hectares to 300 hectares.

Practically all new large manufacturing projects are developed in industrial parks, Yurchenko said. Such a park provides a company with leveled and prepped land, technical services and roads. These factors let companies open manufacturing plants faster in industrial park faster than they could on their own. It often takes about two to three years to build a factory in Russia, but setting up in an industrial park cuts that timeframe down to about one year.

Building costs for industrial parks vary depending on the needs of the resident company, the type of building materials and the infrastructure.

Construction for one occupier could be 50 percent less than another, Lance Pilant, associate director of warehouse and industrial real estate at CB Richard Ellis in Russia, said in an interview.

Many regions, such as the republic of Tatarstan, are coming up with ways to attract industrial park developers and builders. Regional governments can decrease the cost of purchasing land, or lower property or profit taxes for industrial projects.

Despite speedy development, industrial parks have run into problems. Communication setups lead to a common complaint. While a local government waits for a company to develop engineering systems, the company waits for the government to install communications infrastructure.

Getting Technological

Though industrial parks are the centerpiece of Russia's business park trend, technoparks also have a role. Technoparks tend to be smaller than industrial parks and are characterized by clusters of buildings that house offices and sometimes laboratories.

There are 10 operating technoparks in Russia, Ilya Ponomaryov, a deputy in the State Duma and member of its information technology committee, said in an interview.

As with industrial parks, many other sites, such as office parks, promote themselves as technoparks to attract more prestigious residents and charge more rent. There is a difference: Technoparks assist the companies they rent space to, such as by offering access to investment funds, while office parks just provide space.

Technoparks also pose less of an upfront cost for tenant companies. Companies often rent space in technoparks, while companies in industrial parks own their property.

That is demonstrated by the high take-up in technoparks: Usually, technopark vacancy rates are very low.

The Kazan technopark Idea, one of Europe's largest at 30,000 square meters, has been in operation since 2004. More than 100 technology companies lease space there, and the park has been anywhere from 85 percent to 96 percent full at any given point during its operations, Idea spokesman Yevgeny Malikov said in a telephone interview.

Other sites include an information technology park under construction in Tatarstan and a waste-processing technopark under construction in the Sverdlovsk region. It's expected to open in three years.

In general, technoparks spring up closer to Moscow and other major cities than do industrial parks.

The most significant technopark in Russia — when and if it is completed — will be Skolkovo, the innovation hub in the Moscow region. Touted by President Dmitry Medvedev as a Russian version of Silicon Valley, the hub is expected to house labs and offices of Russian and multinational technology companies.

Skolkovo offers residents access to the greatest number of services, Ponomaryov said. The facilities and services include an investment fund and a technical university.  

Interest in technoparks has been growing, especially in the last year, Ponomaryov said. Lenders such as the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development are putting their money into technoparks, with the EBRD lending $43 million to finance the first phase of the Pulkovo technopark near St. Petersbug last March.

Ponomaryov said he sees the future of technoparks as "progressive."

"Technoparks will grow and expand," the Duma deputy said.