Architecture professor Miroslav Grcev, an outspoken supporter of SDSM and the Colored Revolution, came out in support of building the huge residential complex next to the GTC shopping mall. SDSM fired up protesters against a plan to deck GTC in a neo-classical style facade and to make it a closed space mall, as well as against other development in the city, but now top officials of the “revolution”, like Grcev and Martin Panovski, husband of Open Society Foundation director Fani Karanfilovska – Panovska, are advancing the project.

The development, including businessman Zoran Antic and the Macedonian Orthodox Church, would see three high-rises and a new mall built at a large parking next to the shopping mall and over the near-by Novo Maalo neighborhood.

This land is not public space. Development there can’t be driven by personal convictions or taste, and it can’t be open to negotiation. There is a general spatial plan for the area and a detailed plan that is now being implemented, Grcev said.

The company threatened to sue if the city bans the development. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Zoran Zaev also came out in support of building the high-rises although he said he wants the project toned down from the original demand to have them up to 60 stories high.