Ionut Dumitrescu, one of the founders of Romanian real estate consultancy firm Eurisko – now CB Richard Ellis Romania – will work on developing an office and retail compound on the 28,000 sqm site of the former Grivita beer factory in Bucharest.

Bought by Romanian company Kiseleff Development from brewer Heineken, the site will keep some of the historic buildings. Dumitrescu will work on developing the project via his firm Element Development.

The project will be delivered in three phases, and will require investments of EUR 40 million. It will include a class A office building on some 29,000 sqm, a retail center, an entertainment area of 9,000 sqm, and a piazza, green areas and three buildings preserving the original architecture, and which will be converted into cafes, restaurants, terraces and a brewery.

First the developers will revamp the three existing buildings, after demolishing everything else on the site. Once construction work will start, some 1,000 people are expected to work on site.

Dumitrescu sold his shares in Eurisko to CB Richard Ellis in 2008 and went on to develop real estate, by buying the land, building and then selling projects. Such a project was HQ Victoriei, a 9,000 – sqm office building which was finalized in 2009 and sold in 2012 to investment fund Zeus Capital.

The Grivita beer factory was built in 1869 by German industrialist Erhard Luther and was one of the first beer factories in Bucharest and in Romania.

The Luther beer became the supplier of the Royal House of Romania. After 1848, the factory was nationalized and became the Grivita beer factory. Its name was changed into Gambrinus in the 70s. Heineken Romania, which runs four beer factories in Romania, bought it in 2007.

In 2007, the Bucharest City Hall had it excluded from the list of monuments in order to build the Basarab flyover nearby.

editor@romania-insider.com