A luxury housing development in the centre of Ljubljana where some apartments cost upwards of four million euros has been officially launched almost twenty years after the investor bought the land.

A complex of two buildings called Palais Schellenburg and Villa Schellenburg, it features 125 apartments and is the largest luxury complex in Ljubljana in years, and the largest in the centre of the city in decades.

The smaller building has 14 apartments between 119 and 225 square metres and a 335-square metre penthouse. All the apartments there have been sold.

The largest building has 110 apartments on eight floors ranging from 62 to 345 square metres in size. Some of the apartments are still available, costing between €637,000 and €4.2 million.

Ninety percent of the buyers are Slovenians, from businessmen and doctors to lawyers and athletes, the investor, the businessman Jože Anderlič, told reporters on 18 October.

While many apartments in Ljubljana are being marketed as premium but are in fact far from luxurious, Anderlič says Schellenburg indeed fits the bill with top quality materials, insulation, air recovery and filtering system, and a 24-hour reception.

"I think this is a wonderful project and I'm very glad we've finally completed it after twenty years," Anderlič said.

The development is located on the site of an Austro-Hungarian era military barracks called Kolizej which had fallen into disrepair but was at the time protected as a monument.

In exchange for demolishing the listed building and developing flats, the Culture Ministry requested in 2009 that the developer build a concert hall.

However, the proposed building housing the concert hall would have been almost 40 metres tall and the ministry decided in 2012 that buildings in the area may not exceed 30 metres in height.

A new design was therefore commissioned and the investor paid €1.5 million into the budget to get rid of the obligation to build a concert hall.

Construction started in 2020 but was slowed down by Covid. Anderlič said the project cost €120 million.