$100m Greek Twin Towers in Bucharest

The Twin Towers of World Trade Center will be restored, yet not in New York, but in Bucharest, at a smaller scale.

Greek company SC Pantechniki SA won the tender organised by the Bucharest City Hall and consequently it will build a commercial centre with two smaller interconnected twins in front of Romexpo, under a total investment worth 100 million dollars, Andreas Velis, the company’s manager for the Eastern Europe division, maintained.

He added that the works could be concluded by 2004, with Aedificia Carpati being one of the sub-contractors.

In addition to office spaces, the complex planned by the Capital City Hall will include cinemas, a theatre hall and underground parking lots, on a total surface of some 14,500 square metres and being 15.75 metre high, Velis said.

The tender for the 7,233 square metres standing for the second portion of land was organised on Wednesday, as the first part of the project was assigned to Pantechniki last year.

Pantechniki last year competed against US Olympicorp International and Aedificia SA. In addition to Pantechniki and Olympicorp, this year’s tender was attended by Greek company Sarantopoulos.

Pantechniki won the auction as it bid eight billion ROL to lease the land, while Olympcorp offered 7.785 billion ROL and Sarantopoulos offered 7.790 billion ROL.

Established in 1960, Pantechniki has been listed on Athens Stock Exchange since 1999 and registered 55.1 million euros in turnover last year.

The company has more than 600 employees and is part of the Pantechniki group, operating in various fields, such as real estate, BOT (build-operate-transfer) and marine projects.

Pantechniki collaborated with other companies for projects aiming at the Athens Olympic Games to be held in 2004. The company also operates in Romania and Cameroon. Velis last year managed to persuade the company’s heads to establish a subsidiary in Romania.