How Bucharest’s once-overlooked rail junction is turning into the capital’s hottest business hub
<h3>When office tenants talk about Bucharest’s Central Business District (CBD), they still instinctively point to the glass canyons around Piața Victoriei and Aviatorilor. But a new, future-proof CBD has been emerging in the last 10 years just 2.5 kilometers west of Victoriei, in the area around the Basarab overpass and Bucharest’s biggest technical university.</h3>

<p>October 2015, Grozăvești is buzzing with possibility. Cranes stretch over the half-built Basarab Overpass, new office blocks are breaking ground, and trams are full of students and professionals heading into a city on the rise. Back then, the daily commute was second nature shared rhythm of work, coffee breaks, and ideas in motion. Nearly ten years later, many thought that rhythm might fade. But the city had other plans. The office is not just back, it’s thriving, alive with collaboration, and more connected to its people than ever.</p>

<p>Fast-forward to a sunny lunch break in 2025. The same tram now glides onto the completed Basarab Overpass, stopping at a station suspended 84 meters above the tracks. Below, a different city unfurls: three mid-rise blocks of Business Garden Bucharest frame a protected space where teams enjoy coffee breaks amongst greenery; a block away, the twin-glass volumes of Orhideea Towers sparkle, housing Thales’ 11,000-sq-m R&amp;D hub. Just beyond, the ARC project rises—a ten-story, near-zero-energy office of 30,000 sqm that will set a new benchmark for Bucharest’s workplaces when completed in late 2026.</p>

<h3>How 150,000 sqm of offices appeared almost overnight</h3>

<p>The spectacular evolution of the Basarab area was mainly driven by scarcity. By the late 2010s, office vacancy in the traditional CBD around Piața Victoriei had dropped below 5%, leaving large occupiers with nowhere to grow. Developers looked 2.5 km west, where derelict warehouses could be assembled into sizeable plots. Since 2018, more than 150,000 sqm of LEED- and BREEAM-rated space have been delivered here, with a further 30,000 sqm under construction and more to come.</p>

<p>Flagship projects arrived in quick succession. Forte Partners’ three-phase The Bridge - 80,000 sqm in all - lured anchor tenants BCR and Molson Coors and was quickly bought by Dedeman-backed Paval Holding. Vastint’s Business Garden brought another 43,000 sqm, while CA Immo’s Orhideea Towers added 37,000 sqm. With blue-chip landlords now on every corner, global occupiers from banking to gaming followed. PPF Real Estate is the last edition to join the club through ARC.</p>

<h3>Infrastructure is the key for the area’s development</h3>

<p>Basarab’s secret weapon is connectivity. Two intersecting metro lines, M1 and M4, meet at Basarab Station, letting passengers swap lines in under three minutes since the M4 platforms opened in 2000. Above ground, the overpass stitches together north-south car traffic, while tram lines 1 and 11 circle the city’s inner ring on dedicated tracks. For suburbanites, the adjacent Basarab rail halt offers a 15-minute hop to communes like Mogoșoaia, bypassing Bucharest’s notorious gridlock.</p>

<h3>A talent engine next door</h3>

<p>If infrastructure is Basarab’s hardware, talent is its software—spanning not only Tech and IT, but also finance, creative industries, engineering, and the many other fields driving the city’s growth.The Politehnica University of Bucharest, Romania’s largest technical university, is one tram stop away, flanked by the Regie campus – the biggest student campus in Bucharest. Thousands of engineering students walk or cycle across the Dâmbovița for internships at large companies like Thales, BCR or Sparkware every year, creating a recruitment pipeline that rivals anything in the older CBD.</p>

<p>Developers have been quick to add residential and retail to the mix. New co-living blocks line Splaiul Independenței while Carrefour Orhideea and Kaufland are within a 5-minute walk. Most new projects dedicate ground-floor space to cafés, gyms and medical services, boosting the area’s 24/7 credentials.</p>

<h3>Market maths still favour Basarab</h3>

<p>Last year saw the lowest office deliveries in Bucharest in two decades, with only one major project completed, according to Colliers. CBRE’s Q1 2025 snapshot shows take-up at 45,000 sqm, up 38 per cent year-on-year, against a meagre pipeline, pushing prime rents toward EUR 19 per sqm/month in Centre-West locations like Basarab. Cushman &amp; Wakefield Echinox puts city-wide vacancy at just 13.6 per cent, its lowest since 2021. All these reports show that demand for premium offices in Bucharest is rising faster than supply, and Basarab is the only sub-market that’s close enough to the city center and still has land left to build on.</p>

<p>With only a fraction of the area’s feasible office capacity built, Basarab is still at the early stages of its growth curve.</p>

<p>Further west, CA Immo and Skanska are also land-banking for additional projects that could push the office supply in the area beyond 250,000 sqm by 2028. If Bucharest’s economy keeps expanding and hybrid working stabilizes at current levels, Basarab stands to capture the lion’s share of new corporate demand, supported by new infrastructure projects like the M6 metro line to the airport and land values still a discount to Victoriei where they are essentially nonexistent.</p>

<h3>A story of change</h3>

<p>Older residents still recall the smell of hot tar when the first bridge pylons were poured in 2006, and the thud of night-time pile-drivers that rattled dorm room windows. They remember shortcutting across disused tracks to get to Polytechnic lectures and sharing bus stops with stray dogs. The only coffee then was vending-machine espresso, swallowed quickly because the platform had no roof.</p>

<p>Today, the same stretch hums with cool local-run restaurants, craft-beer terraces and a cycle lane that glides past The Bridge’s landscaped courtyard. Evening joggers’ loop beneath LED-lit cable stays, while office workers scan QR codes for e-scooters back to the student quarter. The warehouses have been cycled into chic climbing gyms or demolished for NZEB concrete.</p>

<p>Back on the overpass, trams glide where freight wagons once creaked. Twenty years ago, Basarab was an address you hurried past, but today it is the address many multinationals flock to add to their email signatures. The cranes rising beside the Basarab bridge are not just filling a gap in Bucharest’s skyline but redrawing the city’s economic geography.</p>

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<p><em>*This is native content.</em></p>