Starbucks coffee chain restarts expansion in Romania with new shop in Bucharest office park

Coffee shop chain Starbucks leased 200 sqm in Novo Park Business Center to open a new unit. This would be the first coffee shop that Starbucks opens in an office park in Romania, according to representatives of Novo Park. Novo Park is a business center situated in northern Bucharest, in the Pipera area, developed by Genesis Development, owned by Romanian businessman Liviu Tudor. The Starbucks coffeehouse will be located on the ground floor of D building in Novo Park, with direct access from Dimitrie Pompeiu Boulevard, one of the main boulevards of Bucharest. It will be opened to the public from September. This is the tenth Starbucks location in Romania and the eighth in Bucharest. "Starbucks coffeehouses chain is in constant expansion in Romania and opening a unit in one of the largest office parks is a strategic decision. We chose Novo Park because it is located in a well-developed business area. In addition to that, it offers excellent access from two major arteries: Dimitrie Pompeiu Boulevard and Fabrica de Glucoză Street”, said Petko Zahariev, shareholder of the company that owns Starbucks franchise in Romania. The new owners of the Starbucks coffee franchise in Romania are planning to double the network to at least 18 coffee shops. The franchise is now operated by a joint venture between Bulgarian businessmen and Starbucks group who took it over from Greek group Marianoupoulos, according to Ziarul Financiar. In the last four years, Starbucks has opened just one new shop, in Promenada mall. Last year, the former owner of the Starbucks franchise (Marianopoulos Coffee Company III SRL) posted sales of EUR 7 million and a net profit of EUR 839,000, according to official data from the Finance Ministry. The Novo Park office complex, which is the location for the new Starbucks coffee shop, comprises seven buildings with a total leasable area of around 75,000 sqm. Among the companies located here are Hewlett-Packard (HP), Mondelez Romania (formerly known as Kraft Foods), Garanti Bank, Ringier, Sodexo, Infineon Technologies, Yokagawa, Luxoft and UniCredit. "Closing the deal with Starbucks at Novo Park represents a big success for the approximately 8,000 employees working in our buildings, as well as for other employees in the Pipera neighborhood", said Liviu Tudor, president of Genesis Development. About 40,000 people work in the office buildings in the Pipera area, according to representatives of Colliers International, the firm that intermediated the lease. Andrei Chirileasa, andrei@romania-insider.com