The investment and construction of Era City, a regional trading and shopping centre, was announced at a press conference in August 2007.
Half a year later, on February 1, 2008, in Skopje, former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, Minister of Foreign Affair of Slovenia Dimitrij Rupel and CEO of Era Group, Gvido Omladic, together laid the cornerstone of Era City Skopje and the trading building which was to be the first new building of the largest and most modern commercial, shopping and entertainment centre in the region.
According to the website of Era City, these are the main details of the new trading centre:
Investor: ERA Group d.d. Velenje with its partners
Investment value: 150 million euros
Start of construction: February 2008
Surface of the Business Building: 33.600 m2
Shopping mall surface (food and additional activities): 85.000 m2
Shopping mall surface (non-food): 22.000 m2
At the very beginning, the construction was delayed. The deadlines were moved to March-April 2008. In May, construction company Granit started with the construction of infrastructure.
"Finances and the crisis have been a problem also for the starting the construction of the trading centre in Era City," stated Dejan Kosutic from Era Group in 2010 for Utrinski Vesnik.
He explained for Utrinski Vesnik that they were looking for a partner investor for the facility, which at the time was only a construction pit. According to Utrinski, Era Group did not have a building permit for the facility at the time, as they were waiting to find a partner.
"Negotiations with several world and regional companies are nearing their completion and not only for the trading centre, but also for the shopping centres that are part of Era City," stated Kosutic and explained that before the beginning of last year’s crisis, they were negotiating with more companies interested to start building, however they withdrew due to financial difficulties.
"Era bought the land, developed a plan to build on it, however, we are not aware what the situation on the ground is. As a municipality, we are responsible for collecting utility fees and all other fees related to construction. When the Slovenians bought the land there was no legal obligation to begin building within two years of signing of the purchase contract and paying all of the fees. This is a private investment and the risks of it not coming through fall only on the company itself, " said Sasho Trajkov, who was responsible for the economic development of the municipality of Gazi Baba, for Nova Makedonija in 2010.
In 2011, nearly 4 years after it was announced, the Slovenians formally announced that they are stopping the investment.
"The economic crisis has contributed for the halt of this investment. Whether we are going to build the trading and shopping centre and what happens next, we will inform you soon, when we the have the details for our future activities," Tanja Matovska, responsible for informing on the situation at the Skopje Fair, explained for Vest.
"We changed our plan, we even searched for additional investments to realize this project. Everything that is in our competence, even more than that, we finished. The investor had paid the utilities and received a building permit, now everything depends on them," it noted in a brief statement from the municipality of Gazi Baba for Vest.
In March 2016, Skopje Fair officially put up for sale the site where the largest trading and commercial building of Era City was to be built.