Caelum Developments, a company controlled by several Irish businessmen, will invest around 600 million euros to build a shopping complex and two apartment blocks in the Titan district, which will be the company's first investment in Romania.
"Seeing the benefits generated by Poland's accession to the European Union, a country where we have had a presence since 2003, we believe Romania will take the same route, which is the main reason why we decided to enter this market. We have been working on the Titan project for nine months and will have all the necessary permits to start construction works early next year," David Sharkey, the main shareholder of the company told ZIARUL FINANCIAR.
Parklake Plaza, the name of the mall in this project, will be the biggest shopping complex in Bucharest, with 110,000 square metres of lettable space and around 600 stores. The investment in this complex is estimated to be worth 500 million euros. The future tenants of Parklake Plaza will include the Real hypermarket chain, which will rent 12,700 square metres and the Cinema City operator, which will take up 4,000 square metres.
"A total of 77 million euros have been invested in this project so far, which is completely self-funded. The funding for the rest of the project will come from a two-bank syndicate, which includes the German Aareal bank," says the Caelum official.
Caelum will invest 100 million euros in the construction of the two 20-storey apartment buildings, called Parklake Towers, which will comprise of 500 apartments, with a total area of 60,000 square metres. The entire project, which will be developed on an 8.2-hectare plot of land, is scheduled for completion in mid 2010.
"We have a very well positioned plot of land, without any competition in that part of the city. We've had good feedback from the authorities and hope to have a positive launch on the Romanian real estate market. We are in talks with a number of general contractors, including companies that are not yet present on the domestic market," Sharkey says.
The partners on the domestic market include architecture firm Chapman Taylor and the local office of real estate consultant Cushman & Wakefield.
Caelum primarily directs its investments towards Poland, a country where the company owns 36 properties whose market value stands at 1.7 billion euros.
"The subprime crisis in the US had very little influence on Poland or the region. Confidence is high, salaries are rising, and unemployment is going down. The only negative effect could be an increase in the costs of loans. We intend to boost our real estate portfolio from 2 to 10 billion euros within five years," Sharkey adds.
Caelum operates on real estate markets in Hungary, Germany, Romania and Poland, where it has just opened a shopping centre with a lettable area of 18,000 square metres in the city of Gorzow last week.
"We are looking at two more acquisitions in Romania cities where we target the development of shopping centres like the one in Gorzow. The deals could be concluded in around a month," adds the Caelum official.
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