Gran Via plans to start construction of a three apartment building complex there in October.
“The north is a hot spot on the Bucharest map and there aren’t that many developments in the area,” says Antoanela Comsa, general manager of Gran Via in Romania. She did not say how much Gran Via paid for the plot. Lidl will use its share of the former plant site for an office building and a store.
The decision to start a residential development in this part of the city is because of the many office buildings under construction there, which means some employees working in those buildings will want to buy a home close to their workplace, Antoanela Comsa says.
“We will develop and finish two buildings with 128 apartments at first and then if sales go well we will complete the third, which will have 204 apartments.”
Other residential projects in the north of the city are City Point of Israeli-held Shikun & Binui and Red Sea Group and Metropolitan Aviatiei of Robertino Georgescu and Dan Dragulin, both of them near the Calea Floreasca-Barbu Vacarescu office space hub.
Gran Via also wants to begin construction of two buildings with 260 apartments across the street from Plaza Romania mall in western Bucharest in August, on a plot where Electrotehnica plant used to be. The investment will amount to about EUR13 million, without including the cost of the land and the VAT, Antoanela Comsa says. The two new projects will be funded by bank loans.
Gran Via hopes to resume work on Flamenco Residences in Constanta, as well, which it started in 2008 and stopped after building the foundation and two underground levels.
Gran Via’s plans for new projects were prompted by the signs of recovery the market has been showing lately. More than 9,200 homes were completed in the first quarter, almost 12% more than in the year-ago period, according to the National Statistics Institute. Residential demand returned, following the drop in loan interest rates.
The company has sold almost 120 of the 240 apartments in the three buildings in the Timisoara 58 complex. It intends to begin work on two 14-story apartment buildings there in 2016.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)