A single new project was announced on Bucharest’s office space market last year: the first stage of office park Hermes Business Campus in Pipera (northern Bucharest), received with reserve at the time, including by real estate consultants present at the launch event organized at the Belgian embassy.
Quietly, UniCredit signed a contract with Bog’Art to erect a 15-floor building in Piata Presei Libere square and its construction has made significant progress this year, with the metal structure having been built. By the end of the year, the facade should also be installed, with the bank set to move into its new headquarters this spring.
Progress has also been made on other projects this year – Raiffeisen Evolution and Strabag have built the first row of pillars of the Sky Tower, AFI Europe is working on a development next to the Cotroceni Park mall and Radu Dimofte has started work on a building on Aviatorilor boulevard, next to the Leumi Bank headquarters.
By the end of this year, work could also start on the Ana Tower project near the Crowne Plaza hotel, as well as on Floreasca Park, a development made on a plot bought at the beginning of this year by Portland Trust from businessman George Becali.
“We can talk about a developers’ crisis in the last two years, considering that in the 2009-2010 period very few projects were started because banks did not grant funding. Now developers are facing the same situation – much stricter conditions from banks for granting new loans,” says Horatiu Florescu, president of real estate consultancy firm The Advisers Knight Frank.
“The main requirement of most banks is for the project to be at least 25-30% pre-rented. If the developers have secured this minimum percentage of pre-rentals, I believe they stand a big chance of getting the necessary funding and starting to build new projects,” Florescu explains.
(English version by Daniela Stoican; Editing by Radu Bostan)