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U.S. Tishman, GE unit team up for real estate projects in Bulgaria

U.S. company Tishman and commercial real estate company GE Real Estate Central and Eastern Europe have announced plans to invest jointly in several property developments in Bulgaria.

Their first joint venture here is the Sofia Airport Center multi-purpose scheme where the partners will split evenly the 250 mln euro investment costs.

The commercial park - a mix of office, logistics, storage and hotel buildings located 300 m from the new terminal of the Sofia airport, will have a 10 ha footprint and built-up area of 256,000 sq m, including 100,000 sq m of office space, 20,000 sq m of warehouse floor area and 40,000 sq m of hotel premises.

The warehousing component will be operational in early 2008. Talks are underway with international tenants for half of the lettable inventory. The rent rate is 5 euro/sq m per month.

The office and logistics space will rent at 12 euro/sq m.

The construction of the office component will begin in early 2008 at the latest.

An international operator is yet to be selected to run the park's hotel hence the decision to leave the construction of the hotel for the latter part of the project.

Tishman is currently negotiating the acquisition of existing office and logistics properties in Plovdiv, Varna and Burgas. The transactions should be finalised in early 2008. Some of them extend Tishman's partnership with GE Real Estate but the partners did not name the project.

Tishman also said it will begin work on a logistics center in Ruse next summer.

GE Real Estate said it has a two-pronged approach to the Bulgarian market. The company will evolve existing properties - a business center and two shopping malls in Sofia and Plovdiv, while pursuing acquisition opportunities.

According to Karim Habra, managing director for Central and Eastern Europe, the company also intends to invest in residential construction. It has developed some 30 housing projects in Poland and the Czech Republic in partnership with local companies. The same strategy will be employed in Bulgaria.

In July 2007, GE Real Estate Central and Eastern Europe and a group of investors led and advised by Quinlan Private, announced they had signed a contract to acquire the Mall of Plovdiv shopping center in Bulgaria from developers Ocif and CCI.(Dnevnik)