Three new clusters of multi-tenant office properties will take shape in Sofia, said Dian Diakov, office space manager at real estate consultancy Regent Property Advisors. Business Park Sofia (BPS), in the capital city’s Mladost neighborhood, will soon be joined by similar developments sited on the Nikola Vaptsarov boulevard, in the vicinity of the Sofia International Airport and in the Lyulin district. According to Diakov, there is an undersupply of office properties for sale. The shortage has driven rent rates to 30 euro/sq m per month, a target that seemed unattainable just six months ago. Diakov said the cheapest office rentals at the moment are listed at 10 euro/sq m. Some 900,000 sq m of new office space inventory should be placed on the market in Sofia by mid-2009, adding to the 350,000 sq m already in active use. Developers are betting on Class A office properties as droves of local companies are looking to upgrade from the modified apartments they currently occupy to purpose-built office space. Varna, where a business park development similar to the BPS is taking shape, is at the forefront of this trend. The office space stock in Burgas has reached 120,000 sq m while the town of Pleven will soon boast Mania Tower, a property with 115 offices ranging in size from 24 to 160 sq m and rents at 5-6 euro/sq m, said Diakov. In his view, a definite market trend is the investment sale of tenanted office buildings. There are plans, for instance, to sell off-plan Ellipse Center, a project by Belgium's Ilpa SA. There is also pent-up demand for retail space as Bulgaria still lags Central European states in a 1:3 ratio in terms of retail space per capita, said Albena Stoyanova, manager retail space at Regent’s. The EU average is 180 sq m of retail space per capita versus Bulgaria’s 64 sq m. This segment is expected to experience a 300% growth over the next three to five years, said Stoyanova. Regent’s Property Advisors is an AG Capital company. In response to favorable market developments, another AG Capital company, real estate advisors Forton, has decided to spin off into a separate division its brokerage services directorate under the name Regent's.