Work to illegally expand Yerevan’s Dalma Garden shopping center is underway.

The Yerevan Municipality told Hetq that Dalma Invest LLC, the owners of the shopping mall, hasn’t been issued a construction permit since 2018.

When contacted, the shopping center’s press office told Hetq that the company’s business director, the official authorized to comment on the matter, is ill and unavailable. The press office added that the director claimed that no such expansion work is underway.

 

Hetq photographed the area, behind the shopping and entertainment mall, in July of last year. Construction work had already begun.

Dalma Invest LLC applied to the Yerevan Municipality in 2019 for a design permit to expand the shopping complex. Yerevan Mayor Hayk Marutyan provided the company with a permit to design the annex. It was determined that the annex should be envisaged with one semi-basement and two above-ground floors (possibly a higher partial volume) attached to the south-western façade, accepting the maximum façade at 23 m from the leveling mark.

The company submitted the construction sketch project to the municipality before receiving the design permit.

11.2 hectares of land along the Tzitzernakaberd Highway were allocated to Dalma Invest LLC in 2009 by then Yerevan Mayor Yervand Zakharyan.

Tigran Karapetyan, son of former Armenian PM Karen Karapetyan, owns 34.5% of Dalma Invest. Company Director Edgar Khachatryan owns 19.8%.

TC Realty CJSC, founded in 2020, owns 45.6%. Company Director Edita Avetisyan is the daughter of Judge Serzhik Avetisyan of the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation.