“We took over the project because we felt it was worth it, since it is close to the Herastrau Park and the office area, with easy access to DN1 (national road 1) and the beltway,” said Bogdan Rusu, sales manager of Auto F1 Advantage Team, the company conducting the investment.
The shareholders of the investor are Dan Liviu-Marius (70%) and Abu-Lail Akram (30%), according to the Official Gazette, after Constantin Marian-Catalin, who had owned 50%, has recently sold his shares.
The investors have developed four residential complexes with about 500 apartments in the last seven years, called Sunrise Residence and located in Prelungirea Ghencea, in western Bucharest. This is where the money for Cortina came from.
More than 100 people had made down payments or even paid in full for apartments in Cortina Residence that will include 270 apartments and developers even took out quite a hefty loan from Volksbank and Investkredit back when it was first launched.
By the time Cortina went bankrupt, only the basement and three aboveground levels out of the planned thirteen as designed by Westfourth architects had been completed. Under the circumstances, the liquidator only managed to sell it for EUR3.7 million plus VAT last year, despite the EUR25 million debt.
“We started work from the third floor in October 2013 and the structure is almost done so we will continue with the facade and partitioning. We hope to have the project completed by next spring.”
The single building Cortina Residence has 271 apartments with a gross built area of about 30,000 square meters and will include more than 400 parking spots and 300 storage units on the three basement levels. Under the circumstances, the market value of the project can be put at about EUR40 million upon completion, considering the price developers hope to get for apartments and parking spots.
The investors kept the name and partitioning of the original project so studios come with about 70 square meter gross built area, while the top floor will consist of seven penthouse apartments, going from 176 square meters to 260 square meters.
The new investors have used their own money for the project so far and hope to not have to resort to loans, Bogdan Rusu said. They expect to be able to start sales in a month or two, with the asking prices set at EUR1,100 to EUR1,300 per square meter plus VAT so the studios and many of the two-room apartments would qualify for the 5% VAT (which applies to homes that cost less than 380,000 lei or about EUR85,000 i.e.)
“We hope to sell more than 15 units per month. The market seems to be growing across all segments, not only low cost, but also middle-high class,” Rusu said, who did not reveal the value of the investment in Cortina.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)