Malls likely to expand to the province

Anchor Grup, the developer of the two mall-type commercial complexes on the Romanian market, Bucuresti Mall and Plaza Romania, is to expand its portfolio outside Bucharest, too.

“We are in talks to acquire or long-term rent land in some cities, with at least one of the locations to be signed up by the end of this year”, stated Ali Ergun Ergen, general manager of Anchor Grup.

The cities for which Anchor Grup is negotiating the rental or acquisition of some land include Cluj, Timisoara or Galati.

“The surface of a mall is smaller than in the case of Bucharest”s malls, with investments to be lower, as well. I believe it will be about 15-20 million euro malls”, Ergen added. Construction of a mall-type shopping centre generally lasts one year.

In parallel, Anchor Grup will this year start construction works on an office building of 30,000 square metres, Anchor Plaza, close to Plaza Romania commercial complex.

The investment in this building that will host, among others, the headquarters of Romanian entities of the Turkish Fiba group, which include Anchor Grup, revolves around 15 million euros. The funding comes from a loan worth 124 million euros granted by Bank Austria Creditanstalt and HVB Bank Romania.

Contracted this spring, the loan is the largest real estate financing of this year and is aimed, besides the construction of the office building, at refinancing for the two shopping centres, Bucuresti Mall and Plaza Romania.

The two centres have entailed investments of over 100 million euros, being raised on the sites of some former food retail centres (left unfinished after 1989) in Vitan and Lujerului areas. The company bought the two locations together for about 6 million dollars.

Expansion outside Bucharest is part of the policy the general manager of Anchor Grup announced last autumn. Ergen at that time said that around 2010 the company was likely to have five or six malls, with cities outside Bucharest being also considered.