OSIEDLE WILNO

The name is not a marketing gimmick. The estate stands on Elsnerów, by the historic railway line Warsaw – Vilnius, and the entire layout — street names, murals on walls, elevation details — consistently refers to Vilnius architecture. Construction began in 2009 and from the start followed a single urban plan, rather than building by building, as was usually the case in Targówek.

The most interesting thing happened on the tracks, however. The railway station Warszawa Zacisze-Wilno was created because of this estate — in other words, the other way around than usual, when apartments look for an existing station. The effect is very concrete: by train to Warszawa Wileńska and further to the centre takes about fifteen minutes, without traffic on Radzymińskiej and without looking for a parking spot on the other side.

Targówek itself does not pretend to be the city centre and that is its advantage. There is more square meters for the same money here, low-rise buildings, squares and courtyards designed as part of the layout, and daily amenities — shops, kindergartens, service points — grew together with successive stages instead of waiting for them for years.

What is worth paying attention to: the estate is large and still expanding, so the question is not "how is it on Wilno", but "what stands and what will only stand next to this particular building". The second thing is the tracks: the railway provides access, but also sound — apartments on the side of the line are worth viewing at a time when trains run most frequently, not on a Sunday afternoon.

The scale here is different than with a single building. Wilno is an estate built in stages over the years, today over ten thousand people live on it — the size of a small county town. The buildings are low: five storeys above ground and one below, designed by HRA Architekci, courtyards and services on the ground floors between buildings.

Two things result from this scale. The estate has its own railway station — Warszawa Zacisze-Wilno — and its own shopping amenities, so there is no need to go anywhere for daily errands. But successive stages are still being built, so before buying it is worth finding out which stage it is and what is to be built next to it.

Prices and available apartments in individual stages are in the table below, straight from the developer's price list.