“The two residential projects we are working on will take 12/24 months to complete and we are also focusing on the Pinum Doors & Windows plant we will relocate to a new state of the art facility,” says Michele Nusco, chief executive officer and one of the shareholders of the Italian group. He did not provide any details about the relocation of the plant, though.
Naples family Nusco’s ties with Romania go back to the days of the communist regime, when they came to Bucharest to order doors and components from the plants in Pipera, northern Bucharest.
The Nusco family expanded its door business Italy to Romania in the nineties, buying the entire industrial site in Pipera. Pinum Doors & Windows, part of the Nusco group, made an estimated EUR8 million revenue in 2015.
Pinum has a door manufacturing facility in Pipera and inaugurated a PVC trim plant in the area last year.
Michele Nusco says the investment in the residential projects is because the segment is showing signs of a rebound. The lower loan interest rates and economic growth have made Romanians more confident so they decided to buy a house or an apartment. Investors and analysts now fear a new freeze might come because banks are beginning to raise the down payment required for mortgage loans, as the Parliament is due to resume debating the new version of the debt discharge bill, though.
“We are watching the residential segment, which is on the rise. Nusco has 50 hectares of land, on which we will develop exclusive and First Home (affordable i.e.) projects.”
One of the projects is Citta Residential Park in Pantelimon, eastern Bucharest, near the National Arena stadium and Mega Mall, which will consist of four 11-story apartment buildings, with about 380 apartments and 465 parking spots. The project will be developed in two phases (two buildings each).
Citta Residential Park is the second residential project of Nusco in Romania and will target average income people.
The first phase will be completed in November 2016 and require EUR13 million investments. All the apartments will meet the First Home loan criteria. The second phase will begin in late 2016 and take the same amount of investment, Michele Nusco said.
Nusco secured the funding for the development in Pantelimon after the sale of the Nusco Tower office building near Aurel Vlaicu subway station in northern Bucharest to Ioannis Papalekas’ Globalworth in 2014. The deal was put at EUR46 million.
The second residential project of Nusco is Premio-Exclusive City Center Apartments and targets middle class people. Nusco first announced it in 2009 but postponed it until recently due to the crisis.
The group continues investment on the office space segment. It has 10,000 square meters of office space in the Floreasca area in Bucharest and plots of land to be used for new office buildings. It also has 20,000 square meters of retail space on Soseaua Pipera, Michele Nusco added.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)