The owners of the Unirea Shopping Center in downtown Bucharest have started working on the underground passage that will connect the shopping mall directly to the nearby subway station.

Some of the access stairs to the Piata Unirii 2 subway station will be closed during the construction work, which are expected to take about five months, according to an announcement made by Metrorex, the company that operates the Bucharest metro.

When the work will be completed, people who will get off the subway at Unirea will be able to enter the mall directly. Sun Plaza is the only one other mall in Bucharest that currently has a direct connection to the metro system.

Unirea Shopping Center announced this project in April last year. The new passage way that will connect the mall to the metro will also have a shopping gallery, as the mall’s owners are also trying to grow the leasable surface and make room for new tenants. They also want to add a cinema and a skating rink to the shopping center.

Unirea Shopping Center is one of the oldest malls in Bucharest. During the Communist regime, it used to be one of the leading shopping destinations in Romania’s capital. It managed to keep this status for the last 25 years, due to its central location.

Unirea Shopping Center has a total leasable surface of 44,500 sqm and a 23,500 sqm parking lot. Some of its main tenants are fashion retailers Zara and H&M, cosmetics retailer Douglas, and McDonald’s fast food restaurant.

The company that owns the shopping center is controlled by Romanian businessman Dan Adamescu. The same company also owns the Unirea Shopping Center mall in Brasov.

Unirea Shopping Center had a turnover of EUR 12.6 million and a net profit of EUR 660,000, in the first nine months of 2014, according to financial reports on the Bucharest Stock Exchange. The company is listed on the RASDAQ market segment and is currently valued at EUR 38 million.

Andrei Chirileasa, andrei@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Wikipedia)