Swedish real estate developer Skanska moves to western Bucharest and will develop a new office project near the Polytechnic University, a growing office area where Israeli developer AFI Europe and Austrian group Immofinanz have already invested.

Skanska announced the purchase of a 21,000 sqm land plot on the Iuliu Maniu Boulevard, next to the Polytechnic subway station. The piece of land, which is part of the former Pumac factory platform, was one of the best plots on sale in Bucharest.

“This is another important step for Skanska in Romania,” said Marcin Lapinski, president of Skanska Property Romania. “I strongly believe that Bucharest’s central-west area is a place where we can successfully continue our development activity. We see a growing demand from BPO, SSC and IT companies, which find this location perfect due to its proximity to the Polytechnic and access to public transport,” he added.

“I think this acquisition by Skanska will push the development of the whole area,” said Attila Pelli, Head of Development and Land Development with real estate consultancy firm JLL, who brokered the deal.

Romanian investor Ion Radulea (the owner of the Sema Park office project in Bucharest) and Portuguese businessman Alain Bonte own the Pumac platform, which has a total of 7 hectares. They planned to develop three office towers on the land, but the project got cancelled due to the crisis.

The estimated price of land for development in the area is around EUR 300 per sqm, which means that Skanska might have paid some EUR 6 million for the plot. Skanska didn’t reveal the value of this transaction. However, a 3.5-hectare plot in the same area has been put for sale by Piraeus Bank for a price tag of EUR 10 million, according to information available on real estate portal imobiliare.ro.

The whole area where it is located has developed rapidly in the past years, after AFI Europe opened its AFI Palace Cotroceni mall, in October 2009. Meanwhile AFI also opened three office buildings and is currently working on the last two building of the AFI Park project, which has a total of 70,000 sqm of gross leasable area. The three finished buildings are fully leased mostly to BPO and IT companies. Austrian group Immofinanz also owns a 10,000 sqm office building in the area, whose main tenant is IBM.

Skanska recently inaugurated its second office building in Bucharest, part of the Green Court project, which is located in the Barbu Vacarescu-Pipera area, and is currently working on the project’s last building. The Swedish group sold the project’s first building to real estate investment fund Globalworth, for EUR 44 million, after getting telecom group Orange and Schneider Electric to move their offices there. The second building is over 70% leased to retail group Carrefour, pharmaceutical company Sanofi, and other smaller tenants.

The Green Court project, which is also built by Skanska, has a total of 52,000 sqm of office space.

Swedish Skanska opens its second office building in Bucharest after EUR 35 mln investment

Swedish Skanska sells its first office building in Romania to Globalworth Real Estate

Andrei Chirileasa, andrei@romania-insider.com