Bucharest’s market for offices has been getting hotter this year, with new developments announced almost each month, as well as several big transactions. The service sector development in Romania, and especially in Bucharest, is what drives the market up.

The capital city Bucharest is the country’s office hotspot. Several big developers have announced large investment plans in the city and some of them even started working on new buildings.

Vastint Romania, which is part of Swedish group Inter IKEA, recently broke ground at its first office site in Bucharest, near the Timpuri Noi subway station. The group will develop three office buildings with a total surface of 50,000 sqm, the first two of which should be ready in 2017. Vastint also plans to start working on another project in the Orhideea area, an emerging area for offices.

Austrian group CA Immo also announced in October that it would build two office towers near the Basarab overpass, in the Orhideea area. It will invest EUR 75 million in the project, which will have some 37,000 sqm of office space.

A local developer, Forte Partners, owned by Romanian and Lebanese investors, has also started an office project at Grozavesti, next to the one CA Immo is developing. The project’s first building will have a leasable area of 36,000 sqm and will require a EUR 60 million investment whereas the second phase will raise the total investment to EUR 85 million.

Austrian company S Immo has resumed the office project The Mark, located in Bucharest’s Grivita area, after the EUR 60 million investment has been frozen for several years, while another Austrian group, Immofinanz, will expand its Iride Business Park in Pipera, by another 40,000 sqm. Immofinanz has announced it would invest EUR 35 million into a new office building to be ready in the first quarter of 2016.

Swedish group Skanska recently bought a land plot near the Politehnica subway station where it plans to develop its second office project in Bucharest. Skanska just sold its second office building in Bucharest, Building B of the Green Court project, to real estate investment company Globalworth, for EUR 47 million. The transaction was announced on November 10.

Globalworth, which is controlled by Greek investor Ioannis Papalekas, has been the most active office buyer in Bucharest. The company has announced four important office building acquisitions in little over a year: the UniCredit headquarters near Piata Presei Libere, the Nusco Tower and the Green Court Building A, both located in the Barbu Vacarescu – Pipera area, and now Green Court Building B. The total investment was EUR 178 million, most of the money coming from investors on the London Stock Exchange and from loans.

Globalworth also has several large ongoing developments of its own, including Bucharest One tower, near the Aurel Vlaicu subway station, and Globalworth Campus, near the Pipera subway station.

The demand for office space in Romania is expected to grow in the coming years, especially in Bucharest, which is a result of the development of the services sector and the positive situation in the labor market, according to Skanska. Romania is the second-fastest growing shared-services and outsourcing market in Central and Eastern Europe. There are already more than 80 centers employing about 45,000 people in the country and Bucharest is one of the main business-services locations.

The Romanian business-services sector is expected to employ 150,000 to 200,000 people by 2020, which is what the office developers are counting on.

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editor@romania-insider.com