“We strongly believe in the potential of the central-western area of Bucharest. This is why we started The Bridge investment, a business park with a built area of 57,000 square meters in the Orhideea area,” said Geo Margescu, chief executive officer and co-founder of Forte Partners.
He expects the developer to receive construction permits by the end of the year so construction work will be able to begin in early 2016 at the latest and delivery should be done in mid-2017. The new business park will require a EUR60 million investment and will be developed on a plot of land acquired from Spanish-held Hercesa at the end of last year.
“We are positive the central-western area of Bucharest will be the new major office district because of the transportation network, the universities and the proximity to districts of skilled human resources,” Margescu said.
Forte is already in talks with a number of potential tenants for its office project, but will begin construction regardless of whether pre-leases have been signed or not, he added.
Its other investment, this time worth about EUR10 million, is an 8,400 square meter building on a plot of land near Stefan cel Mare subway station in Bucharest. Construction started this March and should be completed by September 2016.
“We have more than ten tenants interested in this office project,” Margescu says without naming any names.
Forte is also working on two luxury residential developments on Jean-Louis Calderon and Londra Streets in the center of Bucharest.
Forte Partners owns a plot of land in Barbu Vacarescu area (north of the city) and a plot on the site of the former Grivita brewery, as well. The company official says he is in talks with various developers for partnerships for office or residential buildings on the two plots.
“We are very confident in the development of the real estate market in Bucharest. We’ve had some land for a quite a while now, we chose to wait and see and now we’ve started to build. Construction prices are sustainable but we expect them to go up,” Margescu says.
“We also believe yields will shrink towards 7% over the next few years (they are now at 8% i.e.). These are the reasons why we felt it was a good opportunity to start investment now,” he added.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)