First store closure in Cotroceni Park. “Another five or six will follow”

Home Brands home décor and products retailer is the first
tenant to close its store in the biggest mall opened in Bucharest
just four months ago, Cotroceni Park, a project that includes
around 250 stores overall. “We closed a store and in the following
months we’ll close another five or six stores. Changing 10-15% of
tenants in the first year is normal. Some tenants have excellent
sales, while others do not fare as well. We help them, but they
also have to help themselves,” Israel Visel, general manager of the
mall, told ZF. Tenant shifts during a mall’s first operational year
are relatively normal. Thus, 18 months after Baneasa Shopping City
mall was opened, around 25 stores were already closed. Cotroceni
Park is among the malls with the biggest rents, with an average of
around 30 euros/square metre/month, but in the first months sales
were relatively good, so that in December the tenants had sales of
250 euros/square metre on average.