He graduted from the Faculty of Aeronautics within the Bucharest Politechincal Insitute and signed up for London Business School. Liviu Tudor has been a businessman for more than 25 years and operates in the real estate sector for over 15.
He is known as one of the biggest office space owners in Romania, but became famous also for a series of premieres in his field. And recently he has been elected President of European Property Federation, an association based in Brussels which brings together commercial building owners from Europe with a total value of over €1,500 billion.
Liviu Tudor and his real estate investment and development company – Genesis Development – came into the limelight in the years 2000, when Novo Park, one of the first Class A business parks in Romania was put into use, in northern Bucharest. Next came West Gate in the Militari neighbourhood, the two parks having a total space for rent of more than 150,000 squared meters and presently hosting numerous multinational companies, such as HP, Ericsson, Siemens, Dacia-Renault, Accenture, UniCredit, Société Générale, Alpha Bank, Garanti Bank, Infineon, Panasonic, and Luxoft.
A business lesson
On an increasingly-competitive market, Tudor has always known to stand out and create differentiators between his business parks and those of his competitors. Firstly, he saw a niche and decided to use part of the West Gate space to build modern student dorms, just a couple of subway stations from several major faculties, but also very close to many potential future employers.
“We cannot have young graduates at European standards living in dorms below EU requirements,” he explained his decision. Then, he started the project for a passageway that would directly connect West Gate park with the Militari subway station, to facilitate access to the office buildings, but also to improve traffic in the area. “It is extremely important to meet the needs of our clients, and from our data, more than 50% of the total employees of companies in West Gate use the subway to get to work,” said the businessman.
Also to expand the services provided to tenants, Tudor opened in 2018, after a €500,000 investment, Studio One – Accommodation Suites, a four-star housing unit. “It is a project developed from a real need, identified within the companies in West Gate. It is much easier and more productive to host your partners or colleagues coming on a business trip or for a training just three minutes away from the office rather than taking them across town,” the businessman told journalists, stressing that the initiative is a premiere on the Romanian office market.
The future sounds interesting
Next came, in the summer of 2018, the opening, after a €1.5 million investment, of an outdoor pool with a running and rollerblading track in the same West Gate park. “We mark today an extremely interesting moment on the office market – we open the first outdoor pool with a running and rollerblading track in Romania, located in a business park. It is for the first time that such a facility is located in the same compound with the headquarters of multinational companies and at hand for their employees. At the same time, this is another step forward towards making reality of a concept imagined since this park started, to create «a city within a city»”, indicated Tudor when the pool opened.
And, most likely, the surprises prepared by the businessman for his current and future tenants will not stop here. He has recently said that he has no intention to invest in projects outside Bucharest, but also said that of the 20 hectares of land he owns in the Militari neighbourhood , 12 are still available for new constructions. “I have already prepared an international auction for architects. We will probably start building as of 2020,” said Tudor. What is certain though is that the decision to expand West Gate is a very well thought one, as the local entrepreneur is knows as a very keen observer of the real estate market. Which has probably contributed to the fact that his businesses are still standing and have continued to develop when others have gone under.
I have already prepared an international auction for architects. We will probably start building as of 2020.
