The land of former plants like Tricodava, Vulcan, Electroaparataj, Laromet and Textila Dacia will accommodate new shopping centers in three or four years, even though malls and hypermarkets seem to be everywhere in Bucharest already.
At the inauguration of the Promenada mall, Bucharest sector 1 mayor Andrei Chiliman said that the sector has only two production facilities left, Griro and CET Grivita, which were employing about 600 together last year.
On the other hand, the sector already has Baneasa Shopping City, retail park Colosseum and the newly opened Promenada operational and the retail development will continue especially on Bucurestii Noi Boulevard, where real estate investors have taken down three plants in the last few years.
The largest former industrial site in the area covers more than 15 hectares and belongs to Israeli-held AFI Europe, which also owns the AFI Palace Cotroceni (west of the city).
AFI bought the land of the former Laromet plant, which used to make copper and copper alloy products, in 2007 and intends to build a shopping center called AFI Palace B.NOI and a housing complex there. Finance Ministry data show Laromet SA was employing only 76 people last year and posted revenues of EUR5 million and net loss of EUR10 million, after manufacturing relocation to Brasov.
About two kilometers away from Laromet and closer to the city center, two textile mills, Beta Impex and Textila Dacia have been recently taken down to make room for more shopping centers. Kaufland has recently secured a permit from Sector 1 City Hall to build a hypermarket on the Beta site and Textila Dacia is where Canadian investor Michael Topolinski plans to develop Victoria City mall, whose anchor tenant is Cora hypermarket chain.
The newly opened Promenada, an over EUR130 million investment by Raiffeisen Evolution, is another mall built on the site of a former plant, FEA, which showed up in the Finance Ministry’s data as having two employees last year.
Sector 6 in the west of Bucharest has also seen most of its plants razed to the ground or about to be torn down. The former industrial site of UMEB close to the Polytechnic University of Bucharest now accommodates AFI Palace Cotroceni, while another plant next to the university, PUMAC, was demolished to make room for office buildings.
Some of the facilities of the former industrial giant that agricultural machinery maker Semanatoarea once was are still standing. Semanatoarea SA had 13 employees and posted about EUR150,000 revenue last year. Some of its former land was used for two office buildings, and the owner of the site, businessman Ion Radulea intends to build more business centers and apartment buildings.
Grantmental in Crangasi had 79 employees left last year and one of its production facilities was torn down to make room for an Auchan City. Auchan also owns the former site of the Tricodava plant in Drumul Taberei, where it plans to start work on a new shopping center, while Lidl has recently begun the construction of a supermarket on the former site of Electrotehnica near Plaza Romania, after building one on a Frigocom plot farther west from Plaza.
Spicul industrial bakery plot in Grozavesti was acquired by a Spanish group several years ago, which planned to use it for housing development, while the owners of Grivita brewery, of Turbomecanica or of Lujerul industrial bakery have expressed intent to sell their land inside the city after having or being about to relocate production.
Transactions involving large plots of land are rather rare, and one of the few closed in Bucharest this year was the acquisition of Aversa near Obor (central-eastern part of the city) by Michael Topolinski, who agreed to pay EUR17.3 million. The new owner will have to keep Aversa in the business of pump-making and at least 200 employees for three years, but the 10-hectare plot was bought with a new development in mind.
South Africa’s NEPI, too, bought 70% in Electroaparataj site in Pantelimon, eastern Bucharest from Austria’s Real4You and 50% in the former site of Vulcan (central-western part of the city) where it plans to start construction of two shopping centers this year.
Electroaparataj operations were relocated to Targoviste, where the company still had 116 employees last year, while Vulcan’s production was moved to Berceni (south of the city) where the company still has about 1,000 employees. Vulcan went insolvent on EUR45 million debt this year.
Timpuri Noi, a plant located less than two kilometers away from Piata Unirii (Unirii Square, central Bucharest) and the former Ford plant on Calea Floreasca, are two more examples of production facilities sitting on prime land, therefore real estate investors bought them but have not built anything there yet.
The changes of the last ten to fifteen years have driven almost 200,000 people in Bucharest to work in office buildings for banks, insurance, IT companies or other corporations, while malls and supermarkets employ another about 30,000 people. Now that the major retailers have razed the city’s heavy industry, Bucharest only has pharmaceutical, fast-moving consumer goods and construction supplies producers left.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)