Retailer Carrefour buys 1.2 hectares in future Bucharest mall project, becomes co-owner

French retailer Carrefour has purchased 12,000 sqm of the ParkLake shopping center, which will be built in Bucharest’s Titan area, and it plans to build and operate a new hypermarket. The value of this transaction was not made public. Via this transaction, Carrefour becomes co-owner of the shopping center project. The new mall, which is set to open in 2016, will have a total of 70,000 sqm gross leasable area (GLA) and 200 shops. About 65% of its GLA is already signed or committed, according to company representatives. The mall is developed by Portuguese group Sonae Sierra and Polish Caelum Development and the total estimated investment is EUR 180 million. Work on the project started in January this year. “We have been very successfully working on the tenant mix of ParkLake and more developments in this area will soon be made public, all of which will reinforce the flagship nature of this development,” said Fernando Guedes de Oliveira, Sonae Sierra CEO. Caelum Development CEO, David Sharkey, added: “Construction is making progress, we are finished with the groundwork and now the structure works will begin – we are on target for our scheduled opening in 2016.” For Carrefour, this is the third new hypermarket it will open in Bucharest, where the company already operates nine stores, which shows its intention to strengthen presence on the local market. The retailer has also signed contracts with developers of Mega Mall and Veranda Shopping Center. Mega Mall, which is developed by investment fund NEPI, will open in 2015, while Veranda, a project of Romanian businessman Florin Pogonaru, is scheduled for 2016. Carrefour has also recently opened a hypermarket in the Vulcan Value Center in Bucharest. Carrefour .operates a total of 162 stores in Romania, of which 26 hypermarkets, 81 supermarkets under the brand Carrefour Market and 47 proximity stores under the brand Carrefour Express. The group had total sales of more than EUR 1.15 billion in 2013. Andrei Chirileasa, andrei@romania-insider.com