First skyscraper in Romania could spring to life in 2003

No skyscraper has worked its way among the buildings that have changed the look of Bucharest over the past ten years yet. People in Bucharest might look up in 2003, though, in order to stare at building twice taller than the Intercontinental hotel.

The Gip Group construction company could start building a 30-45 story-tall skyscraper in 2002, if the local authorities agreed to it, Marian Manofu, the company’s economic manager, told Ziarul Financiar.

The building to be used as a business centre, will cost more than $15 million and could be completed in fourteen months, Manofu estimates. The building would be done by sliding, a method specific to the construction of tall buildings, which entails erecting it by an “around-the-clock” effort.

“Gip Group needs a partner to build such an objective, which can be erected on a 1500-2000 sq. m piece of land in an area in demand on the office space market. Any kind of partner wanting to invest side by side with us is welcome to cover the funding of the works together,” the company representative said.

In case it is erected, the building will the be the tallest in Bucharest, with the company already thinking how it should look like: either three circular modules held together by metallic profiles and covered in the outer glass, or three separate modules.

“Where the sufficiency of the soil is considered, the building could erected in many places in Bucharest, as the only unsuitable places are those which used to be dumpsites,” Manofu explains. This building is an older idea of those at Gip Group, a group of companies specialised in erecting tall objectives, either civil or industrial.

Although the urban development project about executing such a work was first presented to the municipality back in 1995, it was discarded at the time as it would have allegedly “ruined” the look of the Capital. But how would such a building fit into the rest of the Bucharest and into the real estate market anyway?

“I think the local authorities will not have much of a problem with the construction of a skyscraper. In case of a tall building, the ground floors require a 1,500-2,000 sq. m surface, while the upper floors require some 800-1,500 sq. m.

The minimal surface required by the construction of a 30-story tall building would there amount to 5,000-6,000 sq. m,” says Ionut Dumitrescu, Eurisko Real Estate Agency representative.

“As to how appropriate building a skyscraper in Bucharest is in urbanistic terms, this is only for the local authorities to say.

Commercially speaking, it is hard to say whether an investment of dozens of millions of dollars can be recovered in five years, as this is up to the standard the building will fall into – class A or B, and up to the level of rents (currently $20-$25/sq. m for class A and $12-$16/sq. m for class B),” explains Alexandru Nitescu, Regatta Real Estate representative.