Local investor Lotus Center acquires multifunctional complex Oradea Plaza

Local capital group Lotus Center, the largest owner of shopping centers in Oradea, acquired the multifunctional complex Oradea Plaza from Portico Investments Romania portfolio, in a transaction advised by the real estate consultancy company Colliers International.

A mixed real estate project, Oradea Plaza is strategically located in the busy urban city center and has a total leasable area around 7,900 sqm approximately equally split between Class A office space and retail space and has future expansion potential over the 2400 sqm of land available for development. Oradea Plaza is host to tenants from multiple domains, such as banking or telephone services, pharmacies, cafes, fashion stores and a children’s playground, including eMag, Carrefour, Staer, Sensiblu, Medlife, NN or BRD. The complex delivered in July 2010 by international Real Estate Investor Portico Investments includes the first A Class office building developed in Oradea’s city center.

“Interest in the acquisition of Oradea Plaza was significant both from international and local investors. Oradea is a city that has developed very impressively in recent years, having a reputation of good governance and attracting hundreds of millions of euros from EU development funds as well as private investments. The city shows significant further potential for economic and real estate development”, says Robert Miklo, Investment Services Director at Colliers International.

The sale fits the strategy of Portico Investments who is currently looking to enlarge its footprint in Romania by focusing on acquisition of more single tenant convenience retail in the Capital and other major cities in the country. Following the acquisition of Oradea Plaza, the local investor Lotus Center, that also owns Lotus Retail Park, Oradea Shopping City, Trade Center and Lotus Center, becomes the largest real estate player in the retail segment of Oradea.

The value of investments with local capital represented, in 2019, about a quarter of the total real estate investments made in Romania, and the positive evolution in recent years has been accelerated. Looking ahead, there is important potential for increasing local investments in real estate in 2020, which could turn out to be the best year for real estate investments in Romania in the post-crisis period.