The new project is a residential building including almost 100 apartments on the former Frigocom plant site in the Drumul Taberei district in western Bucharest.
Gran Via will self-fund the investment put at EUR5 million and selected Consal Edilitare to build the structure by November this year. The apartment building should be completed by April 2014.
“We have 90,000 square meters of land we bought in 2007-2008 and since the land market is almost non-existent, the shareholders decided that instead of sitting on it, we’d better start building to recoup some of the investment,” said Antoanela Comsa, who became general manager of Gran Via in 2010.
“No one can tell us how fast we will sell the apartments but demand for homes of up to EUR60,000 is there.”
About 70 of the apartments will be two-room apartments, while the rest will be three-room apartments and studios.
The company plans to test the market with this apartment building, whose sale could finance a second construction phase. Gran Via intends to get the necessary permits for two more apartment buildings.
“We’ve got promises for funding from banks depending on the results,” Comsa says.
Gran Via also owns the land formerly occupied by Electrotehnica across the street from the Plaza Romania mall and the former site of Tricodava, both of which in the same district as the new apartment building.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)