August 26 (SeeNews) - Israeli real estate developer BSR Europe and its Luxembourg-registered partner Edmond de Rothschild Real Estates (EDRRES) will build a 200 million euro ($294 million) office and residential compound in Bulgarian city Varna by 2014, a project manager said on Tuesday.
The construction of Varna One is planned to start in November or December this year and is expected to be completed in 2014, BSR Varna’s chief financial officer Stratiya Stratiev told SeeNews. BSR Varna is the Bulgarian-registered company which will develop the project.
Varna One will have a footprint of 74,421 square metres, accommodating six office and five residential buildings as well as two hypermarkets.
BSR Europe also plans to invest 126 million euro in a mixed-use project in the capital Sofia, a company official who declined to be named told SeeNews in January. Construction works there are expected to start later this year or at the beginning of 2009.
BSR Europe already has two projects in Sofia. An office building completed by the company in 2002 has been sold to London-listed Atlas Estates for 7.3 million euro, according to an Atlas Estates statement from October 2007. A BSR Europe residential complex of 630 apartments that is to be completed by 2010 was sold to another Israeli real estate company, AFI Europe, for 8.3 million euro in 2007.
In August 2006, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said it was investing 35 million euro alongside BSR Europe to create a real estate joint venture for countries in Eastern Europe including Bulgaria, Croatia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia.
BSR Europe is listed on the Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange. The company has projects in ten countries in central and east Europe.
Bulgaria’s real estate market has enjoyed considerable interest from domestic and foreign investors drawn by the prospects for high yields after the country's accession to the European Union in 2007.
($=0.6839 euro)