Beer producer Heineken Romania sold the plot which hosts the former Grivita beer factory in Bucharest. The plot, some 27,000 sqm, benefits from zoning approvals for several office towers and a hypermarket.

Heineken Romania however did not disclose the value of the deal, nor the name of the buyer.

The existing zoning approvals also allow to re-use production halls of the former beer factory, now a historic monument. According to Ziarul Financiar, the buyers are real estate investors, and include Ionut Dumitrescu, founder of real estate consultancy Eurisko, now CBRE Romania.

In 2011, Heineken announced plans to build a real estate compound on the plot, and was then awaiting approvals.

The factory building itself is a historic monument and parts of it will be kept. In 2007, the Bucharest City Hall had it excluded from the list of monuments in order to build the Basarab flyover nearby.

The 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 has become 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.

editor@romania-insider.com