West 65: New Belgrade reaches for the sky

About West 65: New Belgrade reaches for the sky

By the ULTIMATE Belgrade Editorial Team

A 155-metre glass tower rising over a new neighbourhood of homes, shops and gardens in Block 65, West 65 was briefly the tallest building in Serbia, and marked the moment New Belgrade began to build upwards again.

The back story

When New Belgrade was laid out after 1948, its numbered blocks were planned as neighbourhoods of mid-rise housing in green space, with only a handful of towers as landmarks. The tallest of them, the Western City Gate, the twin-towered Genex building finished in 1980, stood just a short way from Block 65 and for decades was the tallest building in the city.

For almost thirty years after the 1980s, few tall buildings went up in Belgrade. Then, in the 2010s, as New Belgrade filled with offices and shopping centres, developers began to look upwards again, and Block 65, a large plot at the corner of Omladinskih brigada Street and the city’s inner ring road, was chosen for one of the boldest new projects.

For a few months, the tallest building in Serbia was not an office block or a hotel, but a home.

The project

West 65 was developed by PSP-Farman Holding through its Belgrade company, and designed with the London architects Fletcher Priest. It is a whole new neighbourhood: eleven six-storey residential buildings around landscaped courtyards, a shopping street of about a hundred shops and cafés on the ground floors, and, rising above it all, a residential tower of about 155 metres and 40 floors, made of two linked slender blocks wrapped in glass.

The tower was built between 2019 and 2021. When it topped out, it became the tallest building in Belgrade and in Serbia, a title it held for only a few months before Belgrade Tower at Belgrade Waterfront rose higher in 2021. It remains one of the tallest residential buildings in the Balkans.

In numbers

The complex covers about three hectares, with 514 apartments, office and hotel suites, more than 1,300 parking spaces and about 15,500 square metres of open space planted with 172 new trees.

For visitors

West 65 is in the heart of New Belgrade, a short ride by tram or bus from the old town. Its shopping street and cafés are an easy stop on a walk through the modernist blocks, and from the Sava riverside the tower stands out on the skyline beside the Western City Gate, the old giant of New Belgrade, and the newer towers along the river.

West 65 at a glance

From the developer and contemporary reports.

Listings, fees and opening hours change, so please contact West 65: New Belgrade reaches for the sky directly before you visit.