The largest real estate investor in Romania completes the first stage of modernization of the foodcourt area in Promenada Mall
The redevelopment began this summer, is being carried out in stages and will be completed in 2026. With the completion of the first stage of the redevelopment process of the food court area, Promenada Mall adds eight new names to its list of tenants. In addition, three restaurants are reopening in modernized spaces.
The transformation of the 1000 square meter food court includes changing the furniture and the entire design, which brings a modern atmosphere, with minimalist accents, natural materials and neutral tones. NEPI Rockcastle, the largest real estate investor in Romania – by the value of assets under management, owns Promenada Mall. The extensive analysis of the businesses of all shopping centers in Romania, carried out exclusively by Profit.ro, shows that the 22 malls of the South Africans from NEPI Rockcastle brought them almost 300 million euros last year, 12.4% more than the previous year's result and remain the detached leaders of this real estate sector. Store sales (excluding hypermarkets) in NEPI malls increased by 8.5% compared to 2023. The average shopping basket increased by 8%, in line with last year's trends and despite lower inflation. Only five of NEPI’s malls were loss-making in 2024. In May, lease terms were agreed for 68% of the area to be occupied by the Promenada Bucharest expansion, which is expected to open in Q1 2027, according to NEPI Rockcastle. Profit.ro previously announced that NEPI Rockcastle, the largest real estate investor in Romania – by the value of assets under management, is analyzing the option of including a 4-star hotel with about 200 rooms on two floors and half of the building resulting from the expansion of the Promenada mall in the corporate district of Bucharest. The hotel would take about half of the space originally dedicated to offices. The investor, backed by South African capital, has been working for several years on the expansion of the Promenada mall, which upon completion will become one of the most expensive properties in Romania, with a value of almost 500 million euros. NEPI Rockcastle's initial plan was to add a multi-storey building to the Promenada shopping centre extension, with an area of 58,400 square metres, of which 27,500 square metres were dedicated to office space. The company is now considering including a 4-star business hotel with around 200 rooms in the project, which would occupy two and a half floors of the new building. More precisely, the office space will also be reduced to two and a half floors from the planned four, Profit.ro reported. "We are still analysing this option. We are in discussions with both international and local hotel operators, and we must make a decision in this regard by spring. It would be the first hotel development in the NEPI Rockcastle portfolio and, if it is suitable, it is possible to add such investments to other projects in the portfolio, as we have done with residential projects," Anca Nacu, group investment director at the company, said at the time.
The Promenada București expansion should be delivered in the fourth quarter of 2026, and the investment in this project is calculated at 282 million euros, a large value also because it will have a seven-story underground parking lot, with about 1,600 spaces, the deepest in Romania. NEPI Rockcastle has already agreed on rental contracts for 66% of the additional commercial space resulting from the expansion. The current area of Promenada București is 39,300 square meters, and the value of the mall amounts to 201 million euros. The annual rents collected from the mall are 14.5 million euros. In addition to the Promenada expansion, NEPI Rockcastle expects to start two other residential projects attached to the company's projects in Brașov and Craiova next year. Next to the retail park that the developer has in Brașov, on Calea București, it is planned to build a residential project with 300 apartments, and next to Promenada Craiova a project with 136 apartments is planned.
The developer is also in the process of authorizing residential projects with over 1,200 apartments near its malls in Bucharest, Timisoara, Satu Mare and Râmnicu Vâlcea. The only project completed so far in the residential sector is Vulcan Residence, which completes the Vulcan Value Centre retail park in Bucharest with 254 apartments, of which 20 units are still for sale. NEPI Rockcastle's portfolio is divided into 8 countries in the region and has a total value of 7.1 billion euros. The Romanian market has a share of 38% of the investor's global portfolio.
Source: https://www.profit.ro/
