Businessman Romeo Pomponiu (71 years old), owner of the local chain of Steilmann stores, wants to include, mainly, housing in the project previously dedicated exclusively to offices, which he has been preparing for several years on part of the former Electronic Computer Company ( ICE) Felix, behind the Pipera metro, according to the documents analyzed by Profit.ro. The decision to bet on residential comes after reaching an agreement with One United Properties to sell another plot of land it owns in the Bucharest neighborhood of Pajura, according to Profit.ro’s real estate market sources.
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Pomponiu obtained a first document that allows the change of functionality of the project that has been under approval for several years, on a plot of approximately 12,000 square meters in the Pipera business area.
The contractor’s new plan aims to build a collective housing building with complementary services, such as a sports hall, ground and underground parking, offices, commercial services and catering with a height of 14 floors.
Since 2020, the businessman has already obtained authorization for the dismantling of the existing halls on the land, but he has not started the demolition steps until now.
Its previous plan, presented for the first time by Profit.ro, only proposed the construction of an office tower with 14 floors. At that time, Romeo Pomponiu declared, for Profit.ro, that he is in advanced discussions with various investors and that he will decide whether to sell the project or enter into a development partnership. Among the investors in question was Globalworth, which developed the nearby Globalworth Campus complex, the Amazon headquarters and one of the most expensive real estate projects developed by Globalworth in the Pipera business district.
The previous version of the project promoted by Pomponiu
Contacted by Profit.ro for details about the new plan, Romeo Pomponiu did not respond until the publication of this article.
The change of the project with a focus on residential comes after, last year, Pomponiu reached an agreement with One United Properties, a developer focused on the residential sector, for the sale of about 5 hectares of land that it owns near the former Pajura bread factory in Sector 1. One United Properties would take possession of the property only after obtaining building permits, say Profit.ro sources, who also mention that Pomponiu may also negotiate the sale of the land in Pipera with One United Properties.
Contacted by Profit.ro, One United Properties representatives did not want to comment on the information.
Part of the land in Pipera belonged to the former IPRS Băneasa SA factory. It was bought by Romeo Pomponiu from AVAS in 2006 at a price of 3 million dollars, double the starting price of the auction. The rest of the property belonged to the former ICE Felix factory, whose assets were sold in the period 2006-2008, according to information previously sent to Profit.ro by Florian-Daniel Geantă, the president of AAAS.
A lot of about 30,000 square meters of the former computer factory, located right behind the Pipera metro station, was taken over by the drug distributor Farmexim, controlled by the businessman Ovidiu Buluc, and sold in the summer of 2014 to the Globalworth company, founded by Ioannis Papalekas, at a price of 14.3 million euros.
Romeo Pomponiu’s land is right behind the one purchased by Globalworth, the company that dominates real estate in this area and is the largest owner of office space in Romania.
Romeo Pomponiu’s investor profile points more towards the sale of the land, in the context in which, so far, he has not developed any other real estate projects.
Romeo Pomponiu is known in the business world as the owner of the Steilmann chain of clothing stores. The Steilmann Romania chain of stores, one of the first players to enter the local market after 1989, then brought by the German retailer Steilmann, emerged from insolvency in 2023 and returned debt-free to the economic circuit, after completing a reorganization program that involved including the drastic reduction in the number of units, Profit.ro data show.
The replacement of old factories with shops, office buildings and residential complexes is the process that almost all the big industrial platforms in Bucharest went through. The most famous examples are AFI Cotroceni and AFI Park, which took the place of the former UMEB factory, the Campus 6 and The Light projects that stand on the site of the former Pumac platform, The Bridge and Orhideea Towers, on the site of the former Spicul bread factory, Rose Garden from Suveica (Obor area), Vivenda which took the place of the Titan bread factory, Doamna Ghica Plaza instead of Romfelt or Timișoara 58 over Frigocom in Militari.
In fact, former factories continue to be the main source of land for new real estate developments in Bucharest. Only at this moment are projects in various stages of development on the former platforms Romcarton, Romprim, Laromet, Marmura, Electrotehnica, Timpuri Noi, Automatica, the Pipera furniture factory, Stiteh, Pumac, Semanătorea, Ventilatorul, Rocar, the Baneasa and Spicul bread factories , the Medeus sausage factory and the Grivița beer factory.
About 17,500 houses and apartments could be delivered by investors this year in and around Bucharest, which would translate into a 16.5% drop in new supply, according to a study by real estate consultancy SVN Romania.
Just over 21,000 new homes were delivered in Bucharest and Ilfov in 2023, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics, down 1.3% compared to the result recorded in 2022.
The areas in the north of Bucharest will also attract the largest number of homes that could be delivered in 2024, with a share of almost 40% of the new offer, this being the third consecutive year in which the north of the city is the most important development pole residential in Bucharest, in a context of increasing incomes and implicitly the offer targeting the middle market segment.
Infographic made by Alexandru Urzică
Tags: EXCLUSIVE PHOTO Romeo Pomponiu owner local Steilmann stores housing offices project prepared Pipera metro deal United Properties
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