Albania Advances $4.6B Coastal Tourism Project Linked to Kushner
Demonstrators gathered in Tirana on June 3 against a 4-billion-euro luxury resort planned for a wildlife reserve and former military island. The Albanian government defends the project as a major tourism investment.
archdaily.comDemonstrators gathered in Tirana on June 3 to oppose a luxury coastal development project linked to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Police officers blocked a street during the protest, which focused on environmental impacts and questions over how the land was acquired. The project covers an abandoned island and a stretch of seafront on Albania's southern Adriatic coast.
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One part lies in the Narta Lagoon area, a wildlife reserve, while the second component is a smaller resort on the uninhabited island of Sazan, a former communist-era military base. Plans call for hotels, apartments, villas and a marina. Ivanka Trump described how the family found the location during an interview this week with podcaster David Senra.
"We were on a friend's boat, and we stopped for a swim. Effectively, that's how we found it," she said. "We swam to the island. " An investment firm linked to Kushner has received special investor status from Albanian authorities.
Since late May, excavators have opened access routes, dug into sand, cleared land among pine trees and installed fencing at the site. Video showed an activist being dragged by a private security guard during a demonstration there. Environmental groups from Albania and other European countries have condemned the work.
Protesters in Tirana have carried cardboard cut-outs of pink flamingos, a protected migratory species that uses the area as a stopover along the Adriatic coast. Albania's state anti-corruption agency has confirmed it opened an investigation related to the project.
The government maintains that the land is privately owned, though competing claims have surfaced questioning the privatization process.
Prime Minister Edi Rama defended the venture. 6 billion)," he said. " Albania has 450 kilometers of largely undeveloped coastline that remained pristine under decades of communist rule.
The country is seeking to expand high-end tourism and advance its bid for European Union membership. A similar project in Serbia followed a different path. In November 2025, Serbia's Parliament passed a special law enabling a luxury complex in Belgrade financed by a Kushner-linked firm.
The next month, Serbia's prosecutor for organized crime charged four people, including a government minister, with abuse of office and falsifying documents. Kushner later withdrew from that investment.
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