The newspaper Dnevnik reported on Thursday that Mas Real Estate, one of the two investors for the shopping mall planned as part of the station, has said in its year-end business report that the project had been sidetracked.

The report said that it became clear in January that some regulatory issues had become insurmountable and that the company would focus on other projects. Mas Real Estate did not elaborate what those issues were.

The cost to ending the project would amount to EUR 1.5m, of which EUR 600,000 falls onto Mas Real Estate, the report also said.

Prime Capital, the other investor, is still interested in the project but the land owners, all majority-owned by Granit Polus, have not been persuaded with the timeline for the project, according to Csaba Toth, Emonika project manager at Prime Kapital.

The Emonika project has a long history. The first investment agreement was signed by the national railways operator and Hungarian developer TriGranit in 2007. It was estimated that the project would be completed in 2009.

Initially, the project was valued at EUR 220m, but the estimates continued to grow, according to TriGranit because of ever new demands by the state. By the end of 2012, the cost estimate reached EUR 350m.

TriGranit broke off the contract in 2014. It remained the owner of the land until the plots were transferred onto three companies owned by Cyprus-base Granit Polus, a company incorporated TriGranit's owners and management in 2015.