70m-euro Gold Plaza inaugurated in Baia Mare

Hungary's Futureal real estate developer and Austria's Immofinanz investment fund yesterday opened the last mall of 2010, Gold Plaza of Baia Mare, the most important real estate investment completed this year outside the capital city, just several days after Bucharest's City Mall project went bankrupt, while Armonia Center of Brăila entered insolvency proceedings.
In the absence of the mayor, convicted of corruption, the opening of Gold Plaza mall of Baia Mare was attended by the CEO of Immofinanz, a 9bn-euro business, who was accompanied by an "army" of company representatives, the owners of Futureal, and the general manager of Cora Romania, Philippe Lejeune.
What made these investors continue developing a 30,000 square metre mall in a city like Baia Mare, with a population of around 140,000 inhabitants, half compared with Cluj or Timişoara?
"Over a 50-minute drive radius there are 1.2 million inhabitants without any alternatives of shopping in a such a big centre," explains Eran Socher, the manager of Futureal, who was in charge with developing this project. Futureal was assisted in the mall development by Ţuca Zbârcea & Asociaţii law firm.