Antoniu Panait, Vastint Romania: “Every developer needs patience, focus and a great team”

For Vastint Romania, the most important achievement in the last 10 years was creating a new business HUB named Timpuri Noi Square, in the Central Area of Bucharest, a mixed project that is going to have up to 150.000 sqm leasable area, developed at the junction of two established residential districts: Timpuri Noi and Tineretului.

The company has managed to reconvert an old industrial factory in a successful project dedicated to a growing community represented by the tenants of Timpuri Noi Square, and to a larger community of already residents of the neighbourhood (Dristor, Mihai Bravu, Timpuri Noi, Nerva Traian).

Antoniu Panait, Managing Director of Vastint Romania, says it has been a long and interesting journey from the beginning, starting with the first acquisition of the Timpuri Noi plot. He praises the creativity, patience and dedication of his team in developing the current two projects, namely Timpuri Noi Square and Business Garden Bucharest.

What is the ‘must-have’ for any developer aspiring to be like Vastint?

Patience, focus and a great team. Building and consolidating Vastint’s name in Romania has been a long and interesting journey from the beginning, starting with our first acquisition of the Timpuri Noi plot that was one of the first mix use projects in the middle of the city, that has grown into the amazing project that you can see today, due to the patience and dedication of our team. Each and every one of my colleagues has demonstrated creativity, involvement and has given 100% of its energy and focus into developing the current 2 projects, Timpuri Noi Square and Business Garden Bucharest.

What are the unique features of your company’s projects?

Both our projects have distinguishing features such as natural light provision and great outdoor recreation areas, healthy air conditioning and superior ventilation system that provides 100% fresh air, combined with Vastint’s standard 3m floor clear heights, energy saving electrical equipment and LED lighting. Nevertheless, our class A offices, LEED Platinum certified, offer the tenants the perfect environment to proper accommodate their employees during the working hours, while our reception concept offers them the ideal space for informal meetings and leisure time, ensuring in the same time social distancing. 

What measures has Vastint taken to protect its tenants and the employees post-state of emergency?

First of all, we have always been preoccupied for the wellbeing of the people that pass through our project but especially of the employees that work here, but it’s clear that the situation imposes extra measures, in order to make everyone feel safe in our common spaces, lobbies and elevators. Starting with sanitization measures that translate in additional cleaning and disinfection of all the common areas, changing air filters, sanitizer dispensers, to social distancing measures like limiting the access of no more than four people in one elevator, access through revolving doors will be limited to one person, the installation of transparent screens on the reception desks and moving the collection of packages from the couriers to a singular space that can be disinfectant constantly, these are just a part of the measures that have been taken since working from the office was possible once again.

Additional measures of signage and information have also been taken, like applying limitation strips and information posters to keep the social distance, information regarding hand washing, safety measures taken during this period, stripes to limit the access into the elevators & revolving doors add to the ones already mentioned.

What are the employees missing the most when they are working from home?

The majority of us experienced a loss of purpose and also a diminished productivity level due to the prolonged state of emergency at a worldwide level. The need of human interaction and in some cases of a clear distinction between office space and home have led to some difficulties in keeping ourselves efficient, accurate, motivated and positive. Looking at the bright side, during this working from home period, we have also experienced a faster process of adapting ourselves to using more social media and online apps in order to keep in touch with our colleagues, family and friends. While work from home has been the solution in order to keep the situation under control, it’s fair to say that work from the office cannot be totally replaced, as we’ve seen in the latest CBRE research, human interaction was one of the most important aspect of the daily routine that people have missed while not being at the office and this will remain a constant even after coming back to the office once again, adapting to the new rules and social distancing.

The changes brought by this period have affected people not only on the professional side, but also on a personal level, studies have should a higher rate of conflicts with our better halves, low levels of motivation to do physical exercises, even the appearance of insomnia or anxiety, lowering the quality of our day to day life.

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