10th CIJ Awards Romania fill Radison Blu Bucharest
The 10th annual CIJ Awards Romania took place last night at the Radisson Blu hotel in central Bucharest. With a crowd of over 350 packed into the hotel’s largest ballroom the night’s entertainment featured an energetic performance from the band Ali Bent and a sumptuous 4-course dinner during which tension mounted over who the winners would be. Romania hasn’t seen such a dynamic property market for a decade and this time, the boom seems genuinely to be based on expanding demand from clients and tenants in each market sector. In all, 28 prizes were up for grabs, with record-numbers of nominations in each category.
The evening began with the opening of envelopes in the development sector, beginning with the prize for Best Bucharest Office Development of the Year. This was won by Aviatorilor 8 by NEPI Rockcastle. Nor was it the last time the company would be on stage as it was soon recalled to pick up the Best Retail Development & Developer of the Year for Shopping City Ramnicu Valcea. Moreover, Ovidiu Sandor joined NEPI Rockcastle in the spotlight to celebrate its win in the Best Regional Office Development of the Year for The Office Cluj-Napoca. In the end, however, it was Forte Partners that won Best Office Developer of the Year. CTP, no longer a newcomer to this event, won Best Warehouse Development & Developer of the Year for its project CTPark Bucharest West. The Best Residential Development plaque went to One United Properties for its scheme One Herastrau Park, while Globalworth also made an appearance, picking up the Leading Green Building Development prize for Globalworth Tower. Finally, S IMMO won the Best Refurbishment/Extension of the Year with its expansion of Sun Plaza.
With developments out of the way, it was time for the three leasing categories to be decided. They were won by BCR’s lease of office space at The Bridge, Peek & Cloppenburg’s 5,170 sqm deal at AFI Cotroceni and by Emag’s monster requirement at P3 Bucharest Park for 86,000 sqm. There were two other deals to be commended during the evening, the first of which was for Best Investment Transaction of the Year. This was won by Globalworth’s acquisition of Green Court Bucharest, building C, by Skanska. The Best Land Transaction of the Year was AFI Europe’s deal for 40,000 sqm in Brasov. In a new category, intended to reflect the importance of tenants to the market, the Fastest Growing Tenant of the Year award went to Softelligence. The final prize for the project-based categories was Best Fitout of the Year. This was won by COS.
The awards ceremony then moved into the bestowing of honors on companies and people. CBRE enjoyed the biggest success in this regard, sweeping up the honors in a remarkable performance with wins in Best Property Management Team, Best Office Agency, Warehouse Agency and Retail Agency of the year prizes. In the competitive Best Project Management Company category, Vitalis Consulting proved to be the happiest, while Coral Construct was victorious in the Best Facility Management Company category. Bog’Art made its traditional trip to the stage to accept the Best Constructor of the Year award and the Best Architectural Firm of the Year prize went to Epstein Architecture & Engineering. There were now only a few plaques remaining to be given out. Premier Estate Management’s team was ecstatic to take home the Best Residential Sales Team of the Year, having won the prize for the first time 12 months ago. And the Best Bank Team of the Year in 2017 was judged to have been Raiffeisen Bank. The environmental and socially-minded ESSA prize went to BuildGreen while Ana Dumitrache was the popular winner of the Leadership of the Year award. Finally, it was the team of Biris Goran that had to wait longest to collect their prize for Best Law
