The owners of the three buildings and brokers have to persuade managers of companies with about 7,000 employees to rent space in what appears to be the fiercest competition of the year.
Tower Center, Charles de Gaulle Plaza and Sky Tower, which are close to Piata Victoriei, Piata Aviatorilor and Aurel Vlaicu subway stations (central to northern Bucharest) will be competing over the companies looking to move into a tall building with good visibility and close to public transportation.
The first two buildings, Tower Center and Charles de Gaulle Plaza were developed by Alexander Hergan, founder of the Avrig 35 group, in partnership with Alpha Bank and Industrialexport (Tower Center) and Austria’s CA Immo (Charles de Gaulle Plaza), but the owner changed in the meantime.
Tower Center, which had been sitting empty for a number of years, went through insolvency and was acquired by Ioannis Papalekas and Dragos Bilteanu for some EUR50 million in 2012. Charles de Gaulle Plaza was sold to Germany’s GLL Real Estate in an about EUR80 million deal in 2006.
Tower Center has 22,000 square meters in lettable area, and the relocation of UniCredit Tiriac and Raiffeisen Bank left Charles de Gaulle Plaza with about half of its space available (about 12,000 square meters).
Raiffeisen will leave Charles de Gaulle Plaza and other buildings it is renting in the city to move to Sky Tower and Floreasca Office, which Raiffeisen Property owns. As Raiffeisen is the only tenant of Sky Tower announced so far, the 41,000 square meter building has about 34,000 square meters available now. The project’s broker is consultant CBRE Romania.
The first deal announced for one of the three buildings in 2013 was the rental of 3,200 square meters in Tower Center by hydropower producer Hidroelectrica. Several sources in the real estate business also say that Ernst & Young, too, will be moving from Premium Plaza (Piata Victoriei, central Bucharest) to the building.
On the other hand, another building in Piata Victoriei area – Bucharest Corporate Center, held by Austria’s Immofinanz, saw tenant Generali decide to move to Charles de Gaulle Plaza, where it will occupy about 4,000 square meters across three floors.
“Generali Romania will relocate its main office to Charles de Gaulle Plaza in early May 2013,” said the officials of the insurance company owned by Italy’s Generali, which is also a shareholder in GLL (Generali Lend Lease) Real Estate, the owner of Charles de Gaulle Plaza.
“The building is in a central location, has easy access to public transportation and a restaurant to have lunch in on the ground floor. There are also many restaurants for business meetings nearby, supermarkets to do one’s shopping and other facilities for the day-to-day operations,” said Adrian Marin, chief executive officer of Generali Romania.
Charles de Gaulle Plaza therefore has about 8,000 square meters available, and consultant The Advisers Knight Frank, the exclusive broker of the building, hopes to sign other contracts over the coming week.
Whereas Tower Center is closer to the city center and Charles de Gaulle Plaza is close to the Herastrau Park and a shorter walk from the subway station (20 or 30 meters instead of 500 meters in Tower Center and Sky Tower’s case), Sky Tower will have a mall next to it as of this fall. The mall will have a lettable area of 35,000 square meters.
Rents in the three buildings vary with the amount of space rented and tenant, but usually stand at EUR16 to EUR19 per square meter per month, among the highest in Bucharest.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)