Orco Group, one of the leading French real estate developers operating in the Central and Eastern Europe is planning to invest 20-30 million euros in Romania to build an aparthotel chain, sources close to the company say.
The group will invest through its MaMaison Residences subsidiary set to run this project (worth up to 142 million euros) in the Central and Eastern Europe. The project was financed 10% by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which contributed 14.43 million euros.
Orco’s representatives have confirmed interest in Romania but did not care to provide details as to the stage of this business for the time being.
“Orco has already identified a number of locations for building several aparthotels in Bucharest, with the first of them under construction. Orco may allocate 20 to 30 million euros for Romania depending on the opportunities provided by Bucharest and by other major cities in the country,” the quoted sources said.
Aparthotels are widespread across Western Europe and provide rooms or suites that can be rented for several months at much lower costs than those of the regular hotels for similar periods of time.
This concept has reached an advanced development stage only in the Czech Republic of all the Central and Eastern European countries due to the economic lag.
“The aparthotel industry is the fastest-growing sector in the Western hotel industry, first of all because of the demand from the business community. The construction of aparthotels in the Central and Eastern Europe will support the development of other businesses in the area.” This is how EBRD chose to argue its decision to fund the MaMaison Residences project early this year.
Orco is a medium-sized French group, but also a powerful operator on the real estate market in Central and Eastern Europe, especially in the hotel service industry.
It is both an industrial investor and a contractor or manager of funds invested in the real estate sector. It made about 10 million euro turnover in 2002, mainly from renting offices, flats or aparthotel space in Central and Eastern Europe. laurentiu.ispir@zf.ro