With some of the owners still asking stores or restaurants for rent, such tenants have either closed or are planning to close soon.
“We expect to see an increase in the number of locations vacated by restaurants and coffee shops. The are lots of small and medium-sized businesses that are considering closing their locations for good,” says Venera Munjev, Senior Associate Retail Agency with real estate consultant Colliers international Romania.
The consultant says that some of these entrepreneurs have shifted their business online and will only sell their products through this channel, on their own or by joining already established marketplaces. Other have shifted to brokering healthcare products, equipment and consumables production, etc.
“Some, however, will give up completely and protect their savings. There are some owners in Bucharest’s Old Town with several locations, between two to four, all of them in the restaurant/bar/café business. They plan to resume operations gradually, one location at a time, therefore they could renegotiate for some of the locations or terminate the contract altogether.”
More and more small retailers are negotiating with the owners of office space buildings to defer rent or leave the contract, real estate consultants say.
The large spaces on the ground floor, of more than 1,000 to 2,000 square meters which have a greater impact on the revenue of the building, are usually occupied by one dominant tenant, such as a restaurant or a gym, which pays nominal rent per square meter of up to 70% of the rent per square meter for office space.
“Owners of retail space will remain flexible, depending on how much they have been affected and how much of their revenue renting such space generates.”
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)