Unirea Shopping Center is a chain of two large shopping centres, the initial one being located in Unirii Square,

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

, and the second one in

Brașov Brașov (, , ; german: Kronstadt; hu, Brassó; la, Corona; Transylvanian Saxon: ''Kruhnen'') is a city in Transylvania, Romania and the administrative centre of Brașov County. According to the latest Romanian census (2011), Brașov has a pop ...

Bucharest

Opened in 1976 and enlarged in 1989, it was the largest

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

in Communist Romania. It was converted into a shopping centre during the 1990s. The complex has a total area of and 1,000 parking spaces. The closest

metro station A metro station or subway station is a station for a rapid transit system, which as a whole is usually called a "metro" or "subway". A station provides a means for passengers to purchase tickets, board trains, and evacuate the system in the ...

to the shopping centre is Piața Unirii metro station.

Critical reception

In recent years many empty spaces have appeared in the Unirea shopping centre in Bucharest where once main-street and many less well known brands had their outlets. The state of the building has deteriorated gravely, which may lead to more vacancies in the near future. For occasional Romanian clients and foreign tourists it seems already to be clear that when the owner of the building does not invest in redevelopment (e.g., by reduction of shop floor capacity and modernisation, combined with creation of office space at the top floors of the building), this unique Bucharest landmark mall, despite its magnificent location and history, may lose its attraction completely, and could remain only an interesting outer hull for advertisement purposes mainly. In 2020 only some specialised clothing shops attract seemingly sufficient attention from the greater Bucharest region, worth paying a visit.

Developments in 2021

In January 2021 two outlets of the

Inditex Industria de Diseño Textil, S.A. (Inditex; , ; ) is a Spanish multinational clothing company headquartered in Arteixo, Galicia, in Spain. Inditex, the biggest fast fashion group in the world, operates over 7,200 stores in 93 markets worldwide. ...

group ( Bershka and Pull&Bear) were closed as a result of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, leaving the once attractive

façade A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loan word from the French (), which means ' frontage' or ' face'. In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important aspect ...

of the building partially crippled and shop windows at the north side of the building empty and less attractive. The food court on the top fourth floor was also closed, and most of the remaining shops on the third floor (with one exception) were closed as well, or were relocated to empty space on the second floor. In the basement, only the Mega Image grocery store remains open as of September 2021. On the third and second floor many of the fire exits have been permanently locked, which constitutes a serious health risk in case of a fire in the building.

Unirea Shopping Center Brașov

The owner opened a second shopping centre in 2008 in Brașov, Unirea Shopping Center Brașov, covering on four levels and one underground, with ground and underground parking on three levels. 90% of the brands are present in the Bucharest complex too. Total value of the investment is estimated at 35 million euro. In 2019 the Brașov shopping center, once very favorite for its location near to the railway station, seems to have lost the battle with recently developed malls elsewhere in the city, since it is almost empty, as if in a state waiting for permanent closure.

References

External links

Official website
Shopping malls in Bucharest Shopping malls established in 1976 {{Romania-struct-stub