Prologis announced that it has signed four lease agreements totalling more than 32,700 square metres at Prologis Park Chorzów.

Warsaw-based developer Echo Investment has concluded two loan agreements worth over EUR 317 million with Berlin Hyp, ING Bank Śląski and Helaba – Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen. These investment loans will be used to refinance four office and seven retail projects.

Acting in its capacity as advisor for a German depositary bank, who is currently administrating the German Special-AIF UBS (D) Sector 3 Real Estate Europe, UBS Real Estate GmbH has sold the Nova Praga office building in Warsaw to Mazovia Capital. Cushman & Wakefield and Magnusson Law represented the vendor in the transaction. The building will now be known as Mazovia Plaza.

According to JLL, at the end of Q1 2016, the total modern A-class industrial stock in the Czech Republic (owned by developers and investors) stood at 5.78 million sqm. In the first three months, new supply reached 84,300 sqm, increasing by 112% y-o-y (Q1 2015 vs. Q1 2016). With another 271,200 sqm currently under construction, the 6 million sqm mark of total stock is expected to be passed in the second half of this year. The share of speculative construction increased, nearly half of the industrial premises currently under construction (44 %) being developed on a speculative basis. Developers reflect the lowest vacancy rate in the last decade, strong demand from the potential tenants and a generally positive economic outlook for the Czech Republic. 

The total stock of retail parks in Poland totals 1 million sqm GLA (approximately 90 commercial facilities). The 250,000 sqm GLA of retail parks are located in cities of up to 100,000 inhabitants. Retail parks play the role of everyday shopping centres in the small cities. The volume of transactions of retail parks in the cities from 2010 to 2015 amounted to EUR 82 million. It constitutes 30% of the general number of retail project transactions in these locations – according to the report “Small cities, big shopping?” which was created in cooperation of international advisory company Colliers International and global research company GfK.

According to Cushman & Wakefield, strong investment activity in the core Central European markets of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania continued in the first quarter of 2016, with EUR 1.4 billion invested. The slight decrease in transaction volume of 5% compared to the corresponding period of 2015 was smaller than the 14% fall recorded for Europe overall. Q1 activity was also above the long-run average of EUR 1.2 billion since 2007.

Prologis announced that it has signed lease agreements with Arvato Polska for 30,835 square metres at Prologis Park Błonie. The transactions include a lease renewal for 22,510 square metres and a new lease for 8,325 square metres of additional distribution space.

RICS organised its first annual conference in Bratislava, Slovakia on 5 May. The half-day event focused on the role of international standards in emerging markets and on the Slovakian property market itself.

Cushman & Wakefield announced that now it is the property manager of Union Investment’s two retail properties in Poland: Sarni Stok and Ferio Konin shopping centres.

TriGranit has started its first year backed with a new owner, TPG Real Estate. In Q1 2016, new leases and renewal agreements reached 25,777 sqm GLA, the average occupancy rate is over 95% in TriGranit managed assets and the company has 20,000 sqm GLA office development in progress. Due to the strong performance of the BPO sector in the region, the company plans further office developments in the near future in each of its core countries: Poland, Hungary and Slovakia.