Portland Trust, the developer of the Opera Center and Bucharest Business Park office projects, has started building another industrial project in the western area of Bucharest, whose value is likely to reach 300 million euros at the moment of completion, in approximately three years.
"We own a plot of land of around 100 hectares in the western part of the capital city, at the exit from the highway at kilometre 14, where we have already started infrastructure works for Bucharest West (the name of the project i.e.)," Robert Neale, managing director of Portland Trust, told ZF.
Part of the land is destined for sale, but most of it is due to be rented. Even the land for sale will have access to utilities, though, according to Gabriel Chimisliu, Senior Consultant with Colliers International, the broker of the project. Portland Trust is one of the main real estate developers on the domestic market, beside GTC, the real estate arm of the Israeli group Kardan.
The developer entered the Romanian market in the late ''90s, when it acquired a plot of land in the Operei area, where it developed Opera Center office building, the current headquarters of international companies such as ING, PricewaterhouseCoopers and GSK. "Later on, we bought another plot of land nearby and developed another section, Opera Center II," Neale explains.
The Opera Center project was sold in mid 2003 for 29 million dollars (about 24 million euros at that time) to the Austrian investment fund CA Immo.
Subsequently, the developer acquired another plot of land in the Piata Presei Libere area, where it developed the Bucharest Business Park (BBP) project, the current headquarters of multinationals such as IBM, BAT, Coca-Cola and Carpatcement. BBP was also sold to CA Immo last autumn. According to market information, the value of the deal stood at around 60-65 million euros, being one of the biggest deals on the real estate market, beside the sale of the Iride Business Park for 63 million euros.
Both projects, Opera Center and BBP, were pre-rented long before completion, according to Colliers, broker of the two buildings, with the same situation being generally seen in the case of other class A office buildings, such as Europe House, America House, Dorobanti 239 and Charles de Gaulle Plaza.
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