Tractorul Brasov turns into hypermarket

The first new structure erected on the 120 hectare site in Brasov is a retail park that will include an Auchan hypermarket.

The Auchan hypermarket network, which consists of seven stores on the Romanian market and posted about 350 million-euro business last year, is the first tenant in the retail park to be developed on the site of the former Tractorul plant in Brasov, with a new hypermarket to be opened next year following an over 20 million-euro investment.

Centerra Capital, which bought the 120-hectare plot for 77 million euros in 2007 will begin work on a 55,000 square metre retail park this spring. This is one of the few real estate developments beginning this year.

At the same time, at about 20 kilometres away, Hoyo announced it would commence production of tractors at the plant built in Rasnov this April, following an investment put at 50 million dollars.

The new owners of Tractorul persuaded companies such as IBM and CGS to rent office space in the project and the first new development phase is the Coresi Shopping City, which will require an investment put at some 140 million euros, according to the data previously released by the company.

"Coresi Shopping City will develop in two stages: the first of them includes the Auchan hypermarket, a shopping gallery, a DIY centre, a furniture store and a sports gear store and will be completed in the third quarter of 2011," Centerra officials told ZF. Their long-term plans are for an about 1.3 billion-euro project in Brasov.

Centerra is a company run by businessmen Silviu Savin and Victor Vadaneaux, which also manages the local investments of British fund Cheynee Capital, the main shareholder of the Tractorul site.

The investors want to develop one of the biggest urban regeneration projects on the site in Brasov, which should include office space, homes, a hospital, an exhibition centre or a hotel. They announced at the time they bought the plot that they would attempt to attract an investor to resume production or assembly of tractors and that an area of the site will be set aside for industrial operations.

On the other hand, the representatives of Auchan, a company controlled by French billionaire family Mulliez, said at the end of last year that they planned to double the number of their hypermarkets in Romania over the next three years, with a new store to open in Constanta.