“I am sure that the study ordered by the City Hall will reach the same conclusion as I did when I bought this building, the one that it is a very well constructed building”, said Ioannis Papalekas, the owner of the building.

The story of the tower Cathedral Plaza started ten years ago when the businessman Eyal Ofer, the owner of Willbrook group, started the construction of 18 floors high tower, only few metres away from the Saint Josef Cathedral downtown Bucharest, a very controversial project since the beginning.

After years in the Court, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese obtained a definitive sentence declaring the construction permit not valid and asked the City Hall to demolish the project.

In 2012, Ofer sold the company Millennium Building Development, the vehicle of the project, to Ioannis Papalekas, one of the largest office owners in Bucharest, an investor with a high speculative profile.

Before the takeover of Cathedral Plaza, Papalekas also bought the projects City Mall and Tower Center, both in insolvency, buildings whose financial situation was meantime solved.

The takeover of Cathedral Plaza was evaluated at EUR 50 million, but three years after the transaction the building is still vacant and threatened to be demolished. (source: zf.ro)