The story of Cotroceni Mall

Cotroceni Park, under construction on the former industrial platform close to Bucharest’s textile plant, has been almost completed, after less than two years of works, and is set to become Romania’s biggest shopping centre when it opens.

“We’re keeping our target of opening on 23 September. A week before this date we’ll make a new assessment and decide whether we can open or postpone by several days. But we will definitely reach our initial target, namely opening before Christmas,” said Reuven Havar, country manager of Israeli company AFI Europe, the developer and beneficiary of the 300m-euro investment.

According to Havar, 95% of the interior works have been finalised. With a lettable area of more than 75,000 square metres, the mall will be the biggest on the domestic market, with approximately 300 tenants. “The idea of this mall started in 2004, when my boss (Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev who controls AFI Europe group) decided he wanted to tap into the Romanian market. Four years ago, I came with him from Prague, where I was working at the time, and saw several land plots including this one. Plaza Romania was already opened, but he was confident another mall could be developed here,” recounts Havar.

To finance this investment, AFI Europe raised the biggest amount on the domestic market for the development of a shopping centre, 234m euros, in a period when banks were much more generous with real estate developers.

Shopping centres opened in recent months have generally had a low occupancy rate, and figures related to the number of visitors and sales were below expectations. “We were surprised that only 3.5% of the tenants we had signed contracts with renounced their opening plans,” says Havar, as the project’s occupancy rate stands at 90%.

Rents in the project revolve around 30 euros/square metre, so that developers expect to amortise investments in approximately 10 years.