ROMANIA Funshop Parks to be green parks

Green projects

17 September 2020

Opr./edited by NN

The Funshop Park planned for Vaslui in eastern Romania

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Polish company Scallier, which is developing the Funshop Park chain of retail parks in Romania, has opted to obtain BREEAM certification for all its new parks.

By 2022, Scallier aims to have opened six Funshop Parks in the country with a total of 40,000 sqm gla. Further projects are in the preparatory stage.

Funshop Park will introduce a new quality of retail to medium-sized and small towns in Romania. The inhabitants of such areas often do not have access to modern retail or it is very limited. Funshop Park will bridge this gap by providing their inhabitants with tailor-made facilities offering an attractive retail and F&B mix. We are in the process of advanced talks with tenants. The latter include Polish retail chains wishing to develop in the attractive Romanian market, which is characterised by the rapidly growing purchasing power of consumers. At the same time, the Romanian market is very polarised: most of modern retail space operating in the country is located in Bucharest. One of our basic goals is to develop properties that are as sustainable as possible, providing tangible benefits to tenants and local communities.
Wojciech Jurga, a partner at Scallier responsible for the company’s Romanian expansion

Up to now only 8 assets in the retail and service sector in Romania have obtained BREEAM certification. Overall, there are more than 250 green buildings in Romania, almost half of which have been certified in the last three years and the highest number in 2019.

Construction consultancy Gleeds will be responsible for the certification process as well as project and cost management services.

Currently, around 75 pct of the certified buildings are located in Bucharest. These statistics show great potential for developing green buildings in the rest of Romania’s regions – outside the capital city. The decision to choose BREEAM certification was motivated by the possibility of using not only European but also local standards, and a variety of solutions that contribute to the development of land with respect for the environment. Thanks to using the BREEAM criteria, including appropriate design solutions, we can gain additional advantages for users of all age groups, for example playgrounds in outdoor areas.
Justyna Chmielewska, the head of sustainability at Gleeds Polska