Bucharest’s General Council adopted on Thursday, September 6, a decision to buy a park in the city’s northern area, close to the Barbu Vacarescu – Floreasca office hub, for EUR 50 million.

Dragos Savulescu, a former shareholder of the Dinamo Bucharest football club, and Geta Savulescu are the park’s current owners. They got it following a retrocession process.

The property, known as the Verdi Park, as it is located on Giuseppe Verdi Street, has an area of 46,000 sqm.

According to the municipality, the park’s value was determined based on notary benchmarks, as the law requires. The benchmark price in the area is EUR 1,300 per sqm and the park’s owners initially asked for a price of EUR 1,250 per sqm, or EUR 59 million for the whole property. However, the City Hall negotiated the deal down to EUR 1,080 per sqm or EUR 49.8 million for the whole park, the municipality wrote in an answer to Mediafax.

The acquisition was adopted with 37 votes for, 8 abstains and 3 votes against. MP Nicusor Dan, a former president of Save Romania Union (USR) said the price agreed by the municipality was ten times higher than the property’s actual value.

The General Council also voted the acquisition of 10 new trams for RON 100 million (EUR 21.5 million). The costs will be covered with EU funds while the municipality’s contribution will be only RON 2 million.

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editor@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: print screen from Google Maps)