Spanish group postpones construction of 144 apartments

Spanish CP Grupo company, which entered the Romanian market in 2007 planning to build a 144-apartment block in Colentina district of Bucharest, has postponed it and decided to renegotiate the loan contracted from the Spanish bank La Caixa. "Early in 2009, the company decided to halt the project (Lakeland in Colentina i.e.)," reads an announcement of the CP International Real Estate, the local subsidiary of the Spanish group. The company together with the La Caixa bank decided to restructure the 17 million-euro loan contract and sign a new one for only 3.1 million euros. The Spanish company bought a 2,200 square metre plot of land on which it planned to build a 15-storey tall block comprising 144 apartments, with a three-level underground car park. The total investment in the project had been put at 25 million euros, and the completion of the apartments had been scheduled for 2010. Over the past year, as a result of the steep decline in sales of homes, projects totalling more than 10,000 homes in Bucharest have been frozen, while developers that had not begun construction works postponed them.