The lettable area of the 50 largest office projects in Bucharest is over 1.3 million square meters. Considering an average of 11 square meters per employee, these buildings accommodate over 100,000 of the almost 900,000 employees in Bucharest.
Another 60,000-70,000 Bucharest residents work in buildings smaller than 10,000 square meters, such as Alpha Tower, Oracle Tower, and Premium Plaza, which are not among the top 50 largest buildings in Bucharest.
Employees accommodated in the largest office buildings work for the largest banks (BCR, BRD, UniCredit and Raiffeisen), companies in the IT sector (Oracle, HP, IBM), consultancies (KPMG, Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers) and for companies in other sectors (Carrefour, Petrom, Vodafone), earn the highest wages, and through their work manage to drive the economy forward.
Of the buildings analyzed, the first few ones built in the early 2000s include Opera Center in the Eroilor area and Europe House in Victoriei Square, office buildings that continue to attract tenants from among the multinationals even today, thanks to being located a few meters’ away from subway stations.
Three out of four offices are in the north
Three quarters of the 50 largest office buildings are located along two axes that start from Victoriei Square to Baneasa and Pipera in northern Bucharest.
The largest office projects not found in the north of Bucharest are business park West Gate in Militari (western Bucharest), the first two buildings of the project built on the Semanatoarea platform, and the Anchor Plaza building next to Plaza mall in Drumul Taberei district (western Bucharest).
On the other hand, Pipera was the favorite destination of business park developers, accommodating IRIDE, Novo Park, UpGround (BOB and BOC Towers), Global City, Swan Office Park and Twin Towers Barba Center projects.
The IRIDE project, whose tenants are companies such as Orange, Cosmote, Genpact, Procter & Gamble and JTI, is in fact the largest business center in Bucharest, with a lettable area of around 93,000 square meters, according to data provided by Austrian investment fund Immofinanz, the project’s owner.
What is being built?
The construction of office buildings slowed down significantly in the past few years, as a result of the higher vacancy rate.
The projects under construction which will rank among the top 50 largest in the future is the future headquarters of UniCredit on Expozitiei Boulevard, the Sky Tower building on Barbu Vacarescu Boulevard, which at 35 floors will become the tallest building in the city and the first office building next to AFI Palace Cotroceni mall.
Who owns them?
The biggest office owners in Bucharest are Austria’s investment funds Immofinanz and CA Immo, local businessman Liviu Tudor, the owner of Novo Park and West Gate, and a real estate investment fund owned by Deutsche Bank.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)