Real estate developer Mivan, which will develop the Liberty Center shopping complex in Bucharest, will also build ten malls outside the city by 2010, taking the company's total investment on this market to 750 million euros.
"This is a good time to invest in Romania. We have already bought land in cities like Arad, Bacau, Brasov, Oradea, Ploiesti and Targu Mures, and are in talks for land in Sibiu, Craiova, Galati and Iasi, with each project being tailored to each city and developed over the next three years," stated John Houghton, Senior Property Executive of Mivan.
Mivan is in talks with a series of banks and investment funds to sign partnerships that involve funding for these projects.
Liberty Center is the first shopping complex to be launched by Mivan on the domestic market, with development costs of this 25,000 sqm mall estimated at around 70 million euros. The mall will be erected in the Rahova district, on the location of a former "hunger circus" (derelict unfinished buildings that were supposed to host food stores back in the days of communist Romania; their name comes from the shape of the building and scarcity of food at the time).
"We will demolish the entire building over the next few days and the mall will be built on a new structure (ground floor plus two storeys). The construction work will begin in February next year and be completed in the autumn of 2008," Houghton explained.
A major Austrian bank will help fund the project, said the Mivan official, who did not disclose the name of the partner.
The representatives of Sparkassen Immobilien, the real estate arm of the Austrian Erste group, who had announced they would get involved in the development of a shopping complex in Southern Bucharest outside of the Sun Plaza project, denied any contribution to this project.
The first leases for space in the Libert
