Impact hopes for rotating Transylvanian tower

Romanian developer Impact is studying the possibility of building the country's first rotating tower on its Lomb development project in Transylvania.

Impact business development manager Radu Ivan said that although discussions are at an early stage, the company is in discussion with two specialist firms over the feasibility of the project.

UK practice YRM, as masterplanner for the 267ha scheme in Cluj, Transylvania's largest city, would be involved in any such project.

Ivan said: “We have to look properly at several factors, including the market and the suitability of the land. But we want to have a landmark of some description, and there is nothing like that in Romania at the moment.”

Ivan said that the mixed-use Lomb project, which is being built under a PPP, should escape the effects of the credit crunch as it is still in masterplanning stage so markets should have recovered by the time its residential units come on stream.

However, he said that Impact is revising the timing of its other major scheme, the 65ha Greenfield scheme in Bucharest, to take account of changing market conditions.

“We are now concentrating on areas like hotels and offices for the second phase, which will include less residential. We will also divide the scheme into smaller pieces for investors, as bigger plots are harder to sell,” he said.

According to Ivan, Romania's residential market has been badly affected by the credit crunch but infrastructure markets remain strong. He said: “We do not expect things to go very well in 2009 but everybody's convinced things have to recover, and we expect this will happen in 2010