Budva Municipality has offered to finance in full a 2.5 million euro garage near the Mogren hotel, with 30% of the parking spaces allocated to Budvanska Riviera, the municipality said in a request sent to the hotel group on 18 September 2026. The proposal is intended to add parking in Budva’s central area, but construction of the joint project depends on the hotel group’s consent and prior government approval.
Funding and proposed parking allocation
The municipality’s initiative calls for joint construction of a prefabricated garage on the parking area in front of the hotel. Budva Mayor Nikola Jovanović confirmed that the municipality had approached Budvanska Riviera, Montenegro’s largest hotel company, which is majority-owned by the state. The formal request included supporting documents, a conceptual design, project and technical documentation, and a draft agreement on joint construction.
Under the draft, the hotel group would receive 30% of the completed parking spaces. The municipality said it was also ready to discuss a larger share. Jovanović said the municipality would provide “complete financing of the investment”, and that Budvanska Riviera would have no construction costs.
The proposed arrangement also envisages Budvanska Riviera leasing the spaces allocated to it to Parking Service. That would allow the hotel company to earn income from its share without investing its own capital in construction, according to the proposal. The municipality has framed the offer as business and technical cooperation, rather than a request for the hotel group to fund the works.
Budvanska Riviera owns part of the plot needed for the garage, and its consent is therefore required. The company’s parcel covers 1,487 square metres and is a construction plot with a multimillion-euro value. Plans for the site include hotel and other facilities intended to complement the hotel’s offering; reconstruction of the Mogren hotel is expected, and the hotel is intended to become a property with at least four stars.
The Mogren garage is estimated at 5,500 square metres of gross area. It is included in the Temporary Structures Programme and is next to a plot owned by the municipality. The location is close to Budva’s Old Town, where Jovanović said parking shortages become particularly pronounced during the summer months as tourist numbers increase.
The municipality has already secured budget funding for the garage in its 2026 budget and concluded a contract with a contractor. It says those steps provide the financial and operational preconditions for the investment. Jovanović said the new spaces would “improve access to the central area” and make it easier for guests to reach hotels, restaurants and other tourism facilities.
Two-garage programme and outstanding approvals
Budva’s wider plan covers two prefabricated garages with a combined value of 5.5 million euros. The other project is being built on a site in front of the Merit Starlit hotel and is planned to have 4,500 square metres of gross area. The Mogren project, at 5,500 square metres, is planned on the parking area in front of the hotel, near the Old Town.
In early August 2026, Jovanović selected a consortium of Gemmax gradnja DOO Novi Sad and Viamont DOO Kolašin as the most favourable bidder in a tender for the city garages. The procurement used a design-and-build model. The Mogren site is about 50 metres from the garage already under construction beside the Merit hotel; Jovanović said both projects together would provide nearly 400 parking spaces in the central city zone.
The next institutional steps for the joint Mogren project remain outstanding. The proposal must first receive the government’s green light, after which Budvanska Riviera’s board of directors is to give its position. The municipality has said the contractor is under contract and funding is secured, but that further implementation is waiting for the hotel group’s consent.
Construction of the separate garage beside the Merit hotel has also faced a pause. Work was halted one day after Đorđe Zenović, leader of the Movement for the City, reported that excavation for the foundations had uncovered remains suspected to date from antiquity. The Administration for the Protection of Cultural Property later authorised work to continue on a single-storey prefabricated garage at Republic Square, subject to archaeological supervision.
The decision, signed by the administration’s director Petra Zdravković after a specialist commission inspected the site, applies to cadastral plot 2423 in the Budva cadastral municipality. It requires archaeological supervision by a public institution established by the government that carries out conservation work. This is the garage at the Merit site, not the proposed joint investment at Mogren.
Jovanović said the Mogren investment had funding, a completed tender and a signed contractor agreement, while the remaining condition was Budvanska Riviera’s approval. He said the initiative should be assessed on its economic interests, business case and benefits for the city, rather than political or other considerations. The hotel group’s board cannot consider the proposal until the government has first approved it.
