Romania A shift towards bigger cities

Developers completed 11 retail projects in 2023, totalling app. 215,000 sqm, with retail parks having a 60 pct share, with cities such Bucharest, Craiova, Alba Iulia, Arad, Giurgiu, Vaslui benefiting from such investments. The investment plans for the next 5 years are also consistent, given that more than 500,000 sqm of retail spaces are currently under construction or in different planning stages. Developers will add new retail schemes or major extensions mainly outside Bucharest in cities such Cluj-Napoca, Iasi, Sibiu, Pitesti, Bacau or Galati, with Prime Kapital, NEPI Rockcastle and Iulius Group having the strongest pipeline on the short and medium term.

The retail market registered consistent new deliveries in Q4, with projects cumulating 144,000 sqm GLA being completed. The total retail stock across Romania reached 4.45 mln sqm at the end of 2023, 54 pct of it in shopping centres, 40 pct in retail parks and 6 pct in commercial galleries.

Promenada Craiova, an 80,000 sqm GLA project owned by NEPI Rockcastle and Dedeman (53,000 sqm in a shopping centre and 27,000 sqm in a retail park and a Dedeman store) was the largest retail scheme delivered both in Q4 2023 and also in 2023 overall. This project is also the largest retail investment made in Romania since 2010 in terms of size. Other schemes finalized in the same quarter were AFI Arad, a 29,000 sqm unit developed by AFI Europe and Cosmopolis Plaza of 16,300 sqm GLA located in the Cosmopolis residential project in Bucharest.

Romania also continued to be attractive for international retail brands, as new players such as Lefties, Wittchen, Jimmy Key, Kiko or Happy Group opened their first stores in the country in 2023.

After a period of 3 or 4 years in which the developers’ expansion plans had been almost exclusively focused on retail parks, which had a share of more than 80 pct of the new supply, located in cities with less than 50,000 inhabitants, a shift towards bigger cities was observed in 2023, a trend which will continue going forward, on medium term at least. Retailers are more demanding than ever in regards to the targeted locations for their expansion plans, mainly looking at prime retail destinations. In this context, the new wave of shopping centre developments should attract further new retailers in Romania, while also encouraging the existing players to continue expanding their local footprints.
Dana Radoveneanu, head of Retail Agency Cushman & Wakefield Echinox

The Cushman & Wakefield Echinox Retail Agency brokered 26 leasing transactions in 2023, with an area of approximately 30,000 sqm, in Bucharest and in the main cities across the country, for clients such Somproduct, Mobexpert, Noriel, Jimmy Key or Wittchen.

The prime shopping centres rent in Bucharest stabilized in Q4 2023 to a level of EUR 80-85/sqm/month, while the corresponding figures in secondary cities - Cluj-Napoca, Timisoara, Iasi and Constanta – remained flat, ranging between EUR 50-65/sqm/month, the same situation being observed in tertiary locations, where levels between EUR 30-35/sqm/month were recorded.