Fashion House Group has appointed retail veteran Cornelia Nicolae to the position of Retail Operations Director in Bucharest. In the newly created role, Cornelia will be responsible for launching the Group’s new flagship development, its second in Bucharest, while continuing to drive footfall and sales at its established outlet centre in the capital.

Arad-based developer Wallberg has secured a €7.3 million loan from Garanti Bank for the construction of the second tower of the XCity Towers complex, the first residential tower in the city of Timișoara, a project worth €75 million which will total 955 apartments.

The Vox Technology Park office building in Timișoara has obtained the BREEAM In-Use v6 sustainable certification with an Outstanding rating, the highest existent score accorded on a global level, thus being the first project in Romania with this ranking.

AFI Europe, the owner of among others the largest mall in Bucharest, has completed the takeover of the portfolio consisting of four office projects from NEPI Rockcastle, in the most important office transaction in Romanian history. With a value of €307 million, the transaction through which NEPI Rockcastle, advised by Colliers International, sold four office projects to AFI Europe represents a third of the real estate investment market estimated at about €1 billion in 2020. The acquisition places Romania on the map of large strategic investors and has the potential to become a catalyst for significant new transactions in the future, being an important benchmark for local market liquidity and contributing to increasing investor confidence, according to Colliers International specialists.

The office market in Bucharest and in the major regional cities of Romania - Cluj-Napoca, Timișoara, Iași and Brașov - continues to develop, with local and foreign investors having projects under construction or scheduled for delivery with an area of approximately 500,000 square meters that will be put into use in the next 16 months, according to Cushman & Wakefield Echinox.

Czech real estate developer RC Europe has opened its third retail park in Romania, following an investment of €9 million. The retail park, operating under the Nest brand, is located in Oradea, occupying approximately 6.500 sqm GLA. Construction works on the project started in October 2019.

CC Trust Group AG, a family office owned by the Swiss serial entrepreneur Claudio Cisullo, and Romanian property developer One United Properties, owned by local entrepreneurs Victor Căpitanu and Andrei Diaconescu, have launched a global private equity firm in Switzerland.

Polish company Scallier is developing a new chain of retail parks in small and medium-sized Romanian cities under the Funshop Park brand. By 2022, 6 facilities with a total leasable area of ​​40,000 sqm will be completed. Work is currently underway to prepare further investments. Scallier, based in Poznań, has been operating on the Polish market for nearly a decade and specializes in investment management in the sector of small and medium-sized commercial facilities.

The market of industrial spaces in the west of Romania, respectively in the counties of Timiș, Arad and Bihor, continues to attract the attention of investors, after doubling its volume in the last ten years, ranking second after Bucharest. CBRE recently advised pan-European developer VGP on the acquisition of a 39-ha land plot in Arad. 

Real estate developer Hagag Development Europe finished construction works – refurbishing and reconversion – for its office project H Victoriei 109 in Bucharest. The building will be delivered following the final reception protocol. Up to the present time, 50% of the GLA has been contracted.