On January 10, 2014, the civic movement Guerrilla Gardening Tbilisi held a protest outside Tbilisi City Hall against the planned construction of a five-star hotel named Budapest on the site of the former restaurant of the same name in Vake Park. This was one of a series of protests that had taken place over several years opposing the hotel’s construction, which activists and civil society representatives saw as a threat to one of the city’s most important green spaces.

The protest, organized via social media, drew several hundred participants. Acting Mayor Sevdia Ugrekhelidze stated, however, that despite public opposition, the hotel would be built in Vake Park.

Hundreds of people gathered “to save Vake Park,” holding banners that read: “City Hall Is a Metastasis, City Hall Is Our Enemy,” “Rust for Saws, Oxygen for People,” and others. The protesters demanded a halt to the construction of a seven-story hotel in a recreational zone.

Organizers accused Tbilisi City Hall of abusing its authority by using a special zoning agreement to grant construction permits with the support of the City Council. They argued that such a decision would cause irreversible harm to Vake Park’s ecological and recreational environment and represented a blatant example of turning public space over to private interests.

In response, acting Mayor Sevdia Ugrekhelidze maintained that the permit had been issued legally. She added that the 2015 Youth Olympic Games were approaching, and Tbilisi lacked sufficient hotels, explaining: “When we’re talking about job creation, it’s difficult to choose solely in favor of environmental protection.”

The protests against the Budapest hotel construction continued for months. Activists set up a tent in the park and took turns guarding the area. Following persistent public pressure and ongoing demonstrations, the construction was eventually halted.

However, the legal dispute continued for years. On January 16, 2019, the Supreme Court of Georgia ruled in favor of the investor, upholding former Mayor Gigi Ugulava’s original decree that granted the building permit. Following the ruling, the investor announced plans to resume the hotel’s construction.

On January 25, 2019, current Mayor Kakha Kaladze declared that “Vake Park has won,” confirming that no hotel would be built on the site. According to Kaladze, the city had reached an agreement with the investor for land substitution instead of financial compensation.

A year later, however, the Budapest project’s manager, Giorgi Zakaidze, stated that construction would still begin on the Vake Park site and that the company was filing a claim with international arbitration for damages. He explained that the City Hall had not approved any of the investor’s alternative proposals apart from offering different plots of land.

Negotiations with the investor dragged on for several more years. On December 21, 2022, Mayor Kaladze announced that a final decision had been reached: instead of compensation, Tbilisi City Hall transferred two plots of land worth $2.8 million to the owner of the Budapest hotel project — one near Lisi Lake and the other in Krtsanisi. Notably, a month earlier, the Krtsanisi plot had been officially removed from the city’s forest fund to allow the transfer.