Government approves investment plan to complete Yerevan’s Cascade upper section

By Siranush Adamyan

The Armenian government on Thursday approved an investment program to finish the long-uncompleted upper section of Yerevan’s Cascade complex, aiming to finalize a project that city officials said has been stalled for decades. 

Presenting the plan at the Cabinet meeting, Yerevan Mayor Tigran Avinyan said the project would give the Cascade “a complete and finished appearance” and revive the original architectural vision. He said the goal was to complete the monumental structure while ensuring a connection between the city center and the memorial dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the revolution, in line with the vision of architects Alexander Tamanyan and Jim Torosyan.

Under the plan, the upper section of the complex will include a 1,000-seat municipal concert hall, a contemporary art museum with new exhibition spaces, a dedicated area for state protocol events, and landscaped public spaces. The development will create a new cultural and recreational hub covering roughly 30,000 square meters, while an adjacent 4.6-hectare area will be made available to the developer for a mixed-use complex designed to harmonize with the surrounding environment.

Avinyan told ministers that the site — an excavation left untouched since around 2007 — had long been an “unresolved issue.” He said that after years of debate among architects and the public, the municipality held a new design competition to select a plan for the long-stalled project.

He explained that the city’s initial minimum investment requirement was about 13 billion drams (roughly $34 million), but the winning company, GTB Development, offered to invest nearly $52 million. In addition, the developer is expected to pay around $27 million for the cadastral value of the land and to carry out landscaping work in the area.

Avinyan said independent experts had valued the 4.6-hectare plot at approximately $58 million, while the total expected financial benefit to the city, including land payments and investments, would reach close to $80 million.

The project will be carried out by GTB Development, selected through a competitive — though nonstandard — procurement process that includes strict safeguards. The land will remain under lien until all payments are completed, and the developer must pay a 30% deposit. The company would also face penalties, including the loss of construction rights, if the central section’s completion falls more than nine months behind schedule.

The Cascade — a monumental stairway of white tuff and travertine linking downtown Yerevan with the Victory Park plateau — was originally envisioned by Alexander Tamanyan in the 1920s and later redesigned in the 1970s by architect Jim Torosyan. Construction began in 1980 but halted following the 1988 Spitak earthquake and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Parts of the lower structure were later redeveloped by the Cafesjian Foundation, which opened the Cafesjian Center for the Arts in 2009. The new government-backed initiative represents the most ambitious attempt since Armenia’s independence to complete the complex and restore the symbolic north-south axis of the capital’s urban plan.