Portland Trust, the developer of Opera Center office building in Bucharest, has started developing two large real estate projects located in northern Bucharest.
"We'll erect an office building with a lettable area of 36,000 square metres in Floreasca, as well as a housing project on a 50-hectare plot of land in northern Bucharest. Both projects are in their first stage of development," Robert Neale, managing director and shareholder in the company, told ZF.
The office building will be developed on a plot of land of around 10,000 square metres and will have a total area of 65,000 square metres, as well as 800 parking spots. A project of this size entails investments worth 80-100 million euros. Neale chose not to provide any information on the value of the respective investments.
The company, headquartered in the Czech Republic, is known on the domestic market for being the developer of Opera Center office building and of Bucharest Business Park, projects, which were sold to Austria's CA Immo investment fund, but also for Bucharest West logistic park.
"I have no regrets about having sold the office buildings. I got a good yield at that time. We cannot keep the buildings for a long period of time because they are hard to manage. I sold to CA Immo at that time because it was the first institutional fund on the market. The development of Opera Center, in 1999, was the most difficult project we have accomplished," specified Portland Trust manager.
Robert Neale is 43, was born in Leeds and has been living in Prague since the early '90s, where he founded Portland Trust. Later on, he got Apollo Real Estate US company to join him as a business partner. He chose not to specify the stake he holds in the company.
Portland Trust focuses on the development of real estate projects in the Czech Republic and Romania. The company's representative
