A mix of smart offices, shopping facilities and new homes, the Esplanada project will also have an arts center and a new metro, and be the location for thousands of new jobs.

TRIGRANIT Development Corporation, the company building the Esplanada project, has been extremely active in Central and Eastern Europe. The group has completed €1 billion ($1.3 billion) in new developments, and has a further €2 billion in its development pipeline for ten countries.

After managing a successful portfolio of projects in Hungary and Slovakia, TriGranit extended its reach into new countries including, among others, Poland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and Romania. In Romania alone, TriGranit plans to invest some €2 billion in a slew of real estate projects over the next five years.

Speaking on the real estate sector in Romania, Dan Ghibernea, TriGranit’s Country Manager, says the country has huge potential. “It was obvious, even years ago, that Romania’s property market was going to boom.” He adds, “Even though it has been almost two years since Romania started to be seen as the new real estate El Dorado, the market is still in great need of residential buildings, offices, shopping malls, et cetera. The country still has a lot to offer.”

TriGranit is seeking suitable plots for real estate projects in cities across the country such as Brasov, Arad, and Craiova. It has already secured the Polus Real Estate project in the central Transylvanian city of Cluj, where it will build a residential park worth over €255 million ($338 million). The company won the tender organized by the Cluj council to build 1,710 apartments and 924 houses.

There is also Polus Center, which will be the largest shopping and entertainment center in Cluj County when completed in October 2007. Construction started in 2005 and total investment amounts to €140 million. The planned gross leasable area is nearly 62,000 sqm. There will be some 245 shops with a 15,000 sqm Carrefour as the main anchor tenant. Shareholders include the British Rothschild and the Hungarian OTP groups and Immoeast of Austria.