The mobile telephony operator Cosmote Romania has rented more than 3,000 square metres of office space in the America House project located in Piata Victoriei, according to real estate market sources.
This is the biggest rental deal sealed within America House so far, and one of the biggest on the real estate market. Cosmote representatives confirmed that the America House office building will host the company''s headquarters, but made no further comments.
The average rent for class-A office space generally revolves at around 16-18 euros per square metre per month, while the average duration of a contract is of at least five years. In this context, the total value of the deal is likely to exceed 3.5 million euros.
Other companies that have rented space within America House include Ericsson, the law firm Tuca & Asociatii, Vichy, and Schlumberger, as well as the Japanese Embassy. The America House project has been recently finalised and the first tenants will move in next month.
More than 95% of the office project, which has a total area of around 40,000 square metres, has been rented out so far. The developer of the America House project, which has made investments put at about 50 million euros, is the company GTC Romania. GTC is controlled by the Israeli group Kardan. The group was also behind the deal by which Omniasig was sold to the Austrian group Wiener Staedtische.
Moreover, GTC was involved in the development of the Europe House office project, which hosts Orange''s headquarters. The investment this project entailed amounted to around 23 million dollars, and in 2003, one year after it was delivered onto the market, the building was purchased by the Austrian investment fund Europolis, for about 30 million dollars.
GTC also plans to develop another 4 real estate projects, together worth around 200 million euros.
The company has been present on the Romanian market since 1999, when it acquired the first plot of land in Piata Victoriei, where it built Europe House.
The majority shareholder of Cosmote is the Greek group OTE, which also controls RomTelecom on the Romanian market. Cosmote Romania is the former CosmoRom SA, set up in 1999, which started operating in 2000.
The mobile telephony operator has been recently re-launched under a new brand and announced an aggressive marketing policy, mainly based on lower tariffs than those of rival companies, on attracting young customers and offering free phones to subscribers.
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