Banca Comercială Română (BCR, part of Erste Bank Group) terminated the contract for the 14,000 square metres it rented before the Covid-19 crisis, in 2020, in the Business Garden Bucharest office complex – where it still is the main tenant.

Instead, it will concentrate its operations in its headquarters located in the 18,000 square metres it operates in The Bridge office building, where it plans to rent 5,300 more square metres, according to sources familiar with the deal quoted by Profit.ro.

BCR paid some EUR 6 mln for the space in Business Garden, which it reportedly never used. The move leaves behind half of the complex empty, in the context where the current occupancy rate of the property is around 80%. The bank almost entirely occupies one of the buildings.

BCR rented the space in the Business Garden Bucharest building in 2020 to locate the 1,000 employees who moved from the Bancorex building in downtown Bucharest. The inauguration, however, overlapped with the restrictions brought by the Covid-19 pandemic, during which 90% of BCR employees worked from home.

andrei@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Gabriel Petrescu/Dreamstime.com)