EUR 130 million Promenada mall opens doors, is up for sale

Newsroom 21/10/2013 | 05:17

The 35,000-sqm Promenada shopping mall in northern Bucharest officially opened last week, a year and a half after construction kicked off. Real estate developer Raiffeisen Evolution invested more than EUR 130 million in the project, according to its own data, and said that plans to sell it are still in place.

“We are a developer so yes, we are looking to sell, just as we have sold our other projects,” said Markus Neurauter, managing director of Raiffeisen Evolution. The company has already received several offers to sell but for the next few months the priority will be to focus on running the shopping mall and monitoring its progress.

In addition to this, the developer is also looking to buy land for future office projects, said Neurauter. Raiffeisen Evolution already owns an 11-hectare plot of land in Straulesti, Bucharest, which it bought from Petrom in 2008. The initial plan was to build a residential and retail project there but this is currently on hold.

The Promenada mall is located at the crossroads of Floreasca Road, Pipera Road and Barbu Vacarescu Street in an area of Bucharest where several office projects have been built over the past few years. Three of these projects – Oracle Tower, Sky Tower and Floreasca City Center Office – were developed by Raiffeisen Evolution and later sold.

The location was essential when deciding to invest in the project and is by far the facility’s most important competitive advantage, say Raiffeisen Evolution representatives. The shopping mall’s catchment area includes more than 500,000 people, with the immediate catchment area made up of people with higher than average purchasing power.  Overall, the developer estimates footfall of some 25,000 visitors on average per day, with the peak projected to be reached during the holidays.

Promenada has a gross leasable area of 35,000 sqm. It comprises 140 stores located on four floors, and, in a first for the local market, a 7,000-sqm terrace on the fourth floor which will act as a garden during the summer time and an open-air skating rink in winter. However, the developer changed its initial plan for the project in order to reduce costs. Raiffeisen Evolution scrapped plans to add an adjoining office building of some 27,000 sqm, made changes to the initial car park design and dropped the idea of building a cinema.

Austrian real estate developer Raiffeisen Evolution has been active in Romania since 2003.

Simona Bazavan

 

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