South-African NEPI, which has invested almost EUR1 billion in local real estate in the past five years, is developing the “jewel” of its portfolio on Electroaparataj platform, close to Arena Nationala stadium.
The project has been 60% erected since March until now and construction works are scheduled for completion next April.
“There are 1,500 workers on the site and another 300 will soon come to fit out the façade and at the peak moment, after tenants take over their spaces, the site will have 4,000 employees working at the same time,” said Simina Stoicea, project manager with from design company Epstein.
The five-storey structure of the future mall is largely built by construction company Bog’Art and five of the 15 cranes will be withdrawn in the coming period.
Structure works are carried out only on the last floor, which will host a World Class center, a Cinema City multiplex, the food-court, as well as 1,000 of the 3,000 parking lots of the project.
The rentable area of the project will stand at 72,000 square meters, whereas AFI Palace Cotroceni, Sun Plaza and Baneasa Shopping City, Bucharest’s largest projects of this type, have around 80,000 square meters each, and the occupancy rate of Mega Mall spaces has already topped 90%.
“We’re looking to rent the last 10% of spaces. The project will have a big focus on fashion, considering we’ve managed to attract to Mega Mall all the major market players from all price segments. Overall, there will be almost 50,000 square meters of fashion, from Takko and Deichmann to Inditex and Peek & Cloppenburg. Many tenants, such as Mango or Marks & Spencer, will have their flagship stores in Mega Mall,” said Tiberiu Smaranda, executive director at NEPI, in charge with the group’s retail projects.
“The opening will be in the second half of April and we expect traffic of 50,000-60,000 persons daily and annual sales of around EUR200 million,” added Tiberiu Smaranda.
Such indicators would place the mall on the same tier as AFI Palace Cotroceni, considering the mall of Politehnica area hit sales of EUR205 million and had an average daily traffic of 53,000 persons in 2013.
However, Mega Mall will not tightly compete for clients with AFI Palace Cotroceni given the two centers are some ten kilometers apart. However, two other shopping centers, Veranda Obor and ParkLake Plaza of Titan, are due to be delivered in 2016 and are just 3-4 km away from the project. Meanwhile, Bucuresti Mall of Vitan is undergoing renovation and wants to regain lost ground.
(English version by Catalina Apostoiu)