Anchor invests 10m euros to extend Plaza Romania mall

Real estate developer Anchor Grup, which owns the Bucuresti Mall and Plaza Romania shopping centres, will start to expand and renovate the mall on Timisoara Boulevard (Plaza), with an investment worth 10 million euros. “We intend to maximise the opportunities of our already existing malls. We will start to renovate and extend Plaza Romania this year, but the expansion will be smaller than that of Bucuresti Mall. The investment will not exceed 10 million euros,” Ibrahim Paksoy, CEO of Anchor Grup told ZF. The works will mainly be conducted at night, so as to make certain that the mall is not disrupted. The renovation will be completed this year, while the extended area will be available for the public starting next year. Plaza Romania currently has a 41,000 square-metre lettable area, and was opened in 2004, following a 56 million-euro investment. The investment comes amid an increase in the number of investors who have announced projects in Bucharest, where another 15 shopping centres could be built in the coming three or four years. “As far as I can tell, on the mall segment, the only shopping centres to open will be the Baneasa project, as well as another four malls. If we consider the rise in the population’s incomes over the last two-three years, Bucharest’s malls turnover will flourish by 2010,” added Paksoy.