Major companies are finally starting to sign office deals in the most troubled of districts in the Romanian capital

Michelin Romania has decided to relocate from the World Trade Center in Piata Presei to the Pipera-located Global City Business Park, signing a lease agreement for 4,000 sqm. Global City (56,000 sqm) is a project developed by the Greek investment fund Global Finance that already serves as the headquarters for companies including Coca Cola and TotalSoft. These two companies also decided recently to renew their contracts.

Novo Park, located next to Pipera metro station, has a new 2,700 sqm tenant: Sodexo, a company which delivers meals and provides holiday vouchers. Hewlett-Packard (HP), Procter & Gamble (P&G) and Ringier are also on the tenant list, bringing Novo Park to an occupancy of rate of 98 per cent. The building is owned by local businessman Liviu Tudor, one of the largest real estate developers on the market. He manages Genesis Development, which owns two office parks: Novo Park and West Gate, with a total leasable area of over 130,000 sqm.

Immofinanz Group also closed new deals last month for North Center and Iride Business Park – both in the Pipera area – which involve the extensions of some tenants‘ portfolios. The new deals for North Center were signed with Adrem Invest (527 sqm) and CBN International Europe, which extended its leased area to 1,400 sqm. Other signings include Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies Romania (1,100 sqm) and Acvatot (1,033 sqm) at the Iride Business Park.

“Following the transactions, North Center has become the office building with the highest occupancy rate (72 percent) in the Pipera North area, while Iride Business Park comes in line with our objective to have a minimum occupancy rate of 90 percent,” Eduard Zehetner, CEO of Immofinanz Group said.

“Leasing activity in the Pipera-Dimitrie Pompeiu area recorded a relative boost in Q1, compared to previous quarters, accounting for almost 18 per cent of transactions. This is mainly attributable to competitive rent levels, and traffic fluidity thanks to the completion last year of a new flyover. Moreover, buildings are relatively new and benefit from considerably large floorplans,” Oliver Derksen, a consultant in the office division at The Advisers/Knight Frank told CIJ. (source: cijjournal.com)