“We have a project in Bucharest but for now I would rather not give a lot of details. All I can say is that it is about small mall,” said Philippe Lejeune, who has been running Cora for around ten years.
Lejeune says although there are a large number of malls and hypermarkets in Bucharest, the capital is a city with potential. Cora already has three stores in Bucharest (Cora Lujerului, Cora Pantelimon and Cora Sun Plaza) and four others in the rest of the country (Cluj Napoca, Baia Mare, Drobeta Turnu Severin and Constanta).
Cora has held a plot in Jilava, southern Bucharest, for ten years, but the company’s general manager says it will not be used for the mall. “This year we have a EUR30-EUR40 million budget for buying land. We are looking for opportunities both in the capital and in other Romanian cities.”
Cora already has plots of land in Bacau, Brasov, Bucuresti (on Soseaua Alexandriei and in Jilava), Constanta (where it will build the Corall mall) and Slobozia.
The French retailer is the first company on the hypermarket segment to go to Slobozia, the county seat of Ialomita, a city with a little over 100,000 residents. “We prefer to go where others have yet to go. But now it’s hard to find such locations.”
However, Lejeune would not say no to opening stores in shopping centers developed by other companies. “It all depends on the opportunities that emerge.”
Cora will open stores in shopping centers developed by other companies in Ploiesti and Galati. Lejeune does not offer a timeline for these openings, saying this is dependent on shopping center developers.
Cora’s next opening will be in October, also in a mall, in Arad’s Galleria, where it will open a 5,000 square-meter store.
(English version by Daniela Stoican, Editing by Loredana Frățilă-Cristescu)