Bucharest Mall
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The Bucharest Mall is a modern shopping mall located in Bucharest, Romania.
The four-story, 50,000 sq m mall opened in 1999, in a Ceausescu-era abandoned hunger circus, or giant food warehouse. The transformation of a communist-era warehouse into a modern mall was a 40-million-dollar project, performed by the Turkish firm Bayindir Fiba SA. Located on Calea Vitan approximately 1 km outside Bucharest's historic center, the mall now stands in dynamic contrast to the undistinguished communist-era architecture that surrounds it.
The Bucharest Mall tenants include some 70 stores, including a large supermarket, over 25 restaurants and cafes, a ten-screen cinema multiplex, a bowling alley, a child-care center, a video arcade, a public library, and an exhibition space for young artists. These surround an airy atrium, with escalators running at skewed angles under the warehouse's original translucent dome. A central fountain on the ground floor periodically shoots jets of water four stories up, almost to the dome roof. The parking lot has over 1,000 spaces in a city where a parking lot specific to a commercial building is a novelty.
While several writers have criticized the mall's selection of stores as "lackluster", one journalist, Mihaela Gegea of Romania's English-language daily "Nine O'Clock", wrote in praise of "how a sordid building was transformed...into a more than enjoyable place."