ISTANBUL – Fiyapı, having entered the tourism sector with its purchase of Garip Island, located in Izmir Dikili, will also sell apartments at prices starting from 37,000 lira through its new project at Beylikdüzü.

Fiyapı, having named the island “Fi-Island”, will construct a 5,000-bed five-star hotel on the island, which covers 400,000 square metres and has a building area of 200,000 square metres once allowance is made for commercial and social space.

Given the existence of spa tourism in the region, the hotel will also offer health tourism services and will be open for nine months of the year. Football clubs will also be able to camp on the island on which football pitches will be provided.

The target of 150,000 visitors has been set for the hotel, which will be managed by Fi-Turizm A.Ş.. Visitors to the hotel will be transferred, in accordance with requirements, by means of Fi-Turizm’s own fleet of private planes, helicopters and buses.

The sum of 350 million dollars will be devoted to the investment planned for the island. Fiyapı will fund this investment entirely with its own equity.

Fiyapı will also sell apartments at prices starting from 37,000 lira through its new Fi-Life project.

Fi-Life will consist entirely of studios and 1-1 apartments. The project, comprising 1,088 apartments, will consist of six 25-storey blocks and 40 square metre studios, 54 square metre 1-1 apartments and 60 square metre 1-1 apartments.

The 40 square metre studios will sell at 37,000 lira, the 54 square metre 1-1 apartments at 44,000 lira and the 60 square metre 1-1 apartments at 49,000 lira.

On the island, there will be no more than three stories.

Fiyapı Managing Director Fikret İnan announced in his address to a press conference which was held that they had acquired the island last week for 35 million dollars and that they had not drawn on any loans in this purchase.

İnan said, “A purchase of this nature was something that we neither needed nor contemplated. A couple of months ago, claims started to be made that Greece would sell its islands. This prompted us to do some research. We saw that it would be impossible for us to buy an island in Greece and, even if we did, we would experience problems in managing it. We embarked on a quest for an island in Turkey and purchased the island that we have named ‘Fi-Island’.”

İnan, saying that the opportunity existed to erect a total of three stories consisting of two floors and a basement over 150,000 square metres of the island, noted that the 5,000-bed hotel will acquire the title of largest hotel in terms of bed capacity.

İnan said, “We have set our sights on enabling Turkish people to vacation on an island which is so beautiful that we could well turn it into an imitation heaven. We propose to set up the hotel as a company named Fi-Turizm A.Ş. and to manage it by means of this company. We plan to complete this hotel in full within two years of obtaining permission. We envisage constructing the hotel without the support of any partners or loans.”

İnan, saying that Fiyapı had in fifteen months become a huge family of 5,000, said that they currently had ongoing construction work in excess of 8,000 apartments, 60,000 square metres of commercial space and building area with a total size of 1,100,000 square metres.

Fikret İnan said, “We previously set a goal of 100,000 homes in ten years. Considering where we have come in the space of fifteen months, we will with the grace of God prove that the target of 100,000 homes was a modest one.”

İnan, explaining that they were ahead of plan on all projects and were capable of delivering early, noted that by 31 December of this year they will have completed the basic construction work on all homes that they have sold, they will complete 30% of the detailed work, they will deliver on the Fi-Yaka Esenşehir project in November of this year and that delivery will take place on the Tuzla 2 and 3 along with the Fi-Tower projects in 2011.