Wolfler, who has worked within Austrian investment fund Immofinanz in the past eight years, including for the development of Maritimo mall in Constanta, has recently become the head of the retail department in charge of Central and Eastern Europe of real estate consultancy CBRE. The department covers ten countries in the region, Romania included.
“In Romania the mall is a meeting place and the west follows this trend. (…) The entertainment area is more important here and data shows that the more developed this component, the more successful the mall is and the highest its traffic. This is different from projects in Hungary and the Czech Republic,” Wolfler told ZF.
Malls in Romania are from a different generation than those in Western Europe. The Romanian mall was opened 14 years ago – Bucuresti mall in Vitan (southern Bucharest).
In Western Europe the market of shopping centers has developed over the past 30-40 years and at the beginning the emphasis was laid strictly on the commercial component.
But the shopping center market is a dynamic one, where periodic repositioning is necessary in order to better stand out from competition and to adjust to consumption changes. But this has yet to take place on more mature markets as well as in Romania, although the time for repositioning has come for many projects.
“In the Czech Republic 75% of malls older than six years have not been renovated at all. In Romania this percentage is probably even higher. Although many projects have difficulties, we cannot talk about a trend for renovation projects yet,” says Luiza Moraru, head of the retail department within CBRE Romania, which made revenues of EUR1.1 million in 2012 with a team of 26.
Wolfler says there are owners who don’t want to invest additional money in their malls because they don’t believe in a significant improvement in results, so other investors, who will contribute financially, are needed for such projects.
“In Romania, which can be considered a fresh market, I think there are over ten very good projects. At the opposite end are a few which I think will not survive.”
Wolfler wants to develop a property management team specialized in shopping centers in Romania and believes at a time when bank lending lacks almost completely, CBRE can help investors find financing solutions. “We want to bring together investors who have liquidity and those who have land, ideas and projects,” says Wolfler, who believes in the coming year we will see transactions on the local retail market.
Several major retail anchors at European level are already present in Romania, but consultants say more small and medium-sized retailers have to be attracted.
“In an ideal world small and medium-sized retailers are local. (…) What we see is an expansion of brands from the US, Asia to Europe. We have conducted a study and between 40 and 50 retailers from the US and Asia plan to go into Europe over the next 1-3 years. These retailers will not come to Romania tomorrow, but they will come,” Wolfler concluded.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)