[John Defterios, Cnn Emerging Markets Editor:] Even on a gray winter's day in Vienna, it's hard not to be taken in by a roof that looks like something out of Star Trek.
[Karl Johann Hartig, Project Manager:] Just to me it says something about dynamics, dynamics of railway, dynamics of trains.
[Defterios:] As project manager, Karl Johann Hartig helped bring the city's main train station to life.
[Hartig:] Not a cathedral anymore as these old stations were built. It's a more functional architecture of course.
[Defterios:] The initial plans for Vienna Station were dreamed up a quarter century ago, before the fall of communism. Contract tenders were awarded nearly a decade ago. And the first phase of the $5 bill project, the station itself, is fully operational. This station, of course, is about domestic connectivity, but it also taps three major European arteries, taking passengers to Poland in the north, Romania to the east, Greece to the south and also going west to France. Ronata Bauner is vice mayor of the city.
[Unidentified Female:] Before the trains came here, the end, it stops. And now the trains go right through to all directions and that's also the role we see for ourselves.
[Defterios:] But Vienna's main station wants to be much more than a transport hub. Of the 109 hectares to work with, over half will be opened up for urban renewal. Two anchor business tenants are putting headquarters here: state train operator OBB and by 2016 financial house Erste Bank with 4,500 employees. It's being positioned as the modern alternative to the central business district which is just two-and-a-half kilometers away.
[Unidentified Male:] What we saw already in terms of office space is an increase in rental prices of roughly 15 percent. And that trend is going to continue I'm quite certain.
[Defterios:] Confident, because the city of less than 2 million people is expanding with 20,000 more each and every year. John Defterios, CNN, Vienna.