Antoniu Panait, Managing Director of Vastint Romania, announced during CEDER, that the company has obtained a valid zoning plan and building permit for the second phase of its Timpuri Noi project in the Romanian capital Buchaest.
“Of course, it will be part of the tender to decide when we start construction. But we are permanently improving our buildings, and will be implementing heat pumps and solar panels for the next phase,” he said. According to the initial plans, the developer will build three office buildings with a total area of 50,000 sq m.
Office rents are too low today, in the opinion of Panait. He says that if we take into consideration construction costs, the labor crisis, and high inflation, there will probably be rent increases in the future.
Add to this the scarcity of building permits, which might lead to a decrease in new office stock, and the situation gets even more complicated.
“There are only a few buildings that have zoning plans, so tenants now on the market will soon realize the margins of negotiations are very small for them, for the existing buildings to rent. Owners like us realize the rents, as they are today, will not sustain projects anymore, given the rate of inflation,” Panait told the audience.
Out of around 3 million sq m of office space în Bucharest, 1 million sqm is class B, while a big part of the remaining 2 million sq m of spaces do not meet the expectations of potential buyers.
Panait believes that soon, some buildings will have to go through a total refurbishment, “as buyers and even tenants are audited based on ESG”.
He added that this is happening already for Vastint’s clients: “We have 100,000 sq m of leasable area in Business Garden (Timpuri Noi), and some tenants are asking about energy savings,” he said.
“We will see big changes in the future of office building, there will be pressure in incorporating materials which are produced in a sustainable way, so they will consume as little as possible, and we will not see anymore full glass facades”.
