Gold Plaza successfully opens its gates to the public
Gold Plaza Baia Mare, the first modern shopping & entertainment center in the North Western Romania opened its doors to the public on Thursday, November 4th.
Gold Plaza is a joint development undertaken by the Futureal Group and Immofinanz. Gold Plaza is one of extremely few shopping centers in Romania that have been completed since the economic crisis. The 30,000 GLA center represents an investment of over 70 million euro.
The developers of Gold Plaza have been successful at not only securing bank finance and finalizing the construction of the mall, but were able to achieve an extremely high rate of occupancy in today’s market, with shops open to the public over 82.5% of the center’s total GLA, out of a total area of 86% leased to tenants. In the upcoming 2 weeks there will be a Kinect gallery opened in the mall as well as the conference center that will host the first job fair. Without counting the Kinect gallery the occupancy will grow to 89%.
“The development process of Gold Plaza has been a long and complex one,” Gold Plaza Development Director Eran Socher stated, “but we are very pleased with the outcome. We finalize today a shopping center that is not only a leasing success but also a beautiful building and a unique attraction for the entire population of the North West of the country.”
Gold Plaza enjoys an excellent tenant mix of retail and entertainment businesses, both international and national. The center is anchored by the leading Hypermarket chain Cora, with a hypermarket of a total area of some 7600sqm. “Cora is an amazing company with fantastic appeal to its customers and excellent performance.” said the managing director of the development, Eran Socher.
Gold Plaza is the first shopping and entertainment center in Romania to open its multiplex cinema on the first day of activity. Gold Plaza’s team worked in parallel with Cinema City’s team within the cinema unit to reach this unique achievement. Gold Plaza introduces the first modern multiplex cinema in the North West of the country. Each of the six cinema halls are set to the highest modern standard of cinemas. Three of the halls are equipped with special projectors to support the 3D film technology.
In addition to Cora and Cinema City, Gold Plaza has a very strong fashion element with its first floor almost fully dedicated to fashion units at an occupancy rate of about 90%. Strong demand by retailers allowed the developers to choose the best available brands and create a very strong tenant mix. Tenants in the mall include C&A, New Yorker, Waikiki, Deichmann, Takko, Leonardo, Domo, House of Art, San Francisco, Fox, Altex, Douglas, Centrofarm, Orsay, Best of Bowling, Kenvelo, Jeans Club and many more.
Gold Plaza is one of only three shopping centers to open this year. Out of 120 shopping centers announced in Romania, Gold Plaza is one of extremely few that were able to obtain and maintain development finance and undertake full construction and successful letting in recent years.
Gold Plaza Baia Mare is expected to be a shopping and entertainment attraction to a large population of about 1.2 million inhabitants within less than one hour drive time with no closer alternatives. This gap between customer demand and retail supply is one of the widest in the country and is expected to translate into very strong sales figures for retailers within the mall in upcoming years. “When we realized that Gold Plaza is expected for a very long period to be the only center of its kind if Baia Mare, we decided to turn it into a place with something for everyone. Our strategy was no longer to differentiate it from alternatives but to address difference audiences and turn it into a place that addresses different groups and customer demands. While the immediate population is now better served with a great hypermarket’s wider food product, the greater catchment is also further attracted by the wide entertainment appeal. ”says Eran Socher, Managing Director.
Gold Plaza is positioned in one of the most dynamic and well located areas of Baia Mare, in one of the most highly frequented junctions in terms of car and pedestrian traffic as well as public transportation. The shopping center’s site has wide opening of over 100m on each of 3 of the main boulevards of the city, Decebal, Independentei and Victoriei. The project benefits from a densely populated primary catchment area (10 minutes drive time), of 140.000 inhabitants. There are currently no similar shopping and entertainment alternatives either existing or under construction in the entire North West of the country.
Architecturally, the mall is built as a 3 level structure whereby the ground floor is aimed at providing both smaller unit retail and services alongside the large hypermarket. The first floor of the mall is completely dedicated to retail fashion elements with large and mid-size fashion anchor tenants of clothing and shoes. The first floor is also the host of the home appliances retailer Domo. The second floor, in contrast, is hosted by a particularly strong entertainment element and a unique food court architecture that includes both an indoor part and an outdoor terrace (the “Gold Terrace”) both overlooking the beautiful mountains of the region. Entertainment attractions in the mall include the Cinema Multiplex, a fully let food court with a wide selection of goods, a unique coffee place overlooking the mountains, a large open air terrace integrated as part of the food court, a lounge café, a Karaoke bar, a large kids play, a modern large fitness center, a bowling and billiard unit that will open fully to the public in the upcoming 10 days, a 300sqm art gallery open to the public with current exhibitions, a casino and games areas and a Kinect gallery.
Gold Plaza hosts a special video game gallery for the new xBox360 Kinect game system, creating an entire area of game interaction for the visitors. This concept has been developed together with Kinect’s distributors in Romania and has been assisted both by Altex and Domo. The Kinect game system will be launched in Europe on the 10th of November at which point the gallery shall open to the public. “We are proud of this new entertainment space and the opportunities it represents” said managing director Eran Socher.
Gold Plaza has been developed by Futureal, a leading European real estate developer headquartered in Hungary in partnership with Austrian investment fund Immofinanz. The leasing agent for the project is Colliers International. Gold Plaza is financed by MKB bank.
“Futureal is a leading real estate developer and investor in CEE, and has been ranked among the 10 largest developers in Europe by volume of activity this year. Futureal has a large team of over 120 real estate professionals undertaking developments worth of over € 1.6 billion. The firm works in close, long-term partnership with cities, tenants and investors.
IMMOFINANZ Group is an Austrian property company that is one of the largest in its country and in the region. Immofinanz is the largest real estate investor in Romania with numerous properties, and a growing body of regional shopping centers. Currently, the portfolio of IMMOFINANZ includes more than 1,800 properties with a book value of approximately EUR 8.7 billion. IMMOFINANZ is listed on the prime market of the Vienna Stock Exchange.