December 6 (SeeNews) - Northern Irish real estate developers Milvan and Moritz Group have started the construction of the first mall of a 700 million euro ($1.0 billion) project for 10 shopping centres in Romania, Milvan said on Thursday.
The 10 centres, to be named Tiago Malls, should be completed by 2011. They will be developed in ten Romanian cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants, Mivan said in a statement.
The developers have already acquired 600,000 square metres of land, or 70% of the total necessary to develop the project, for 150 million euro, the statement said.
The investment in the first outlet, located in the northwestern city of Oradea, will reach 70 million euro. Tiago Oradea will provide 25,000 square metres of lettable retail area and is forecast to be finished by the end of 2008. It will employ 750.
Mivan (www.mivan.com) entered the Romanian real estate market in 1998. It is developing the retail Liberty Center and the residential project New Town Residence in the capital Bucharest.
Moritz Group started operations in Romania in 2005. It has acquired some residential and commercial sites in and around Bucharest where construction is expected to start in the beginning of 2008.
($ = 0.6861 euro)