ARTICLES LABELLED WITH TAG Czech Republic

Less than a year before completion, developer J&T Real Estate CZ is selling its Red Court office centre in Prague's Karlín district. BlackBird Real Estate will become the new owner immediately after approval, the online daily Seznamzpravy.cz reported about the transaction.

The second full-service apartment building with fully furnished apartments is being opened in Prague for short- and long-term living by Zeitraum, a leading operator of serviced apartments in Central-Eastern Europe.

A part of the Prague-based residential project Hagibor, which is being built by Crestyl Group, is now owned by Invesco Real Estate. The acquisition concerns the third phase of the residential part of the project, namely the Delta building, which is already under construction and is to be used for rental housing in the future. The price of the transaction, which was reported by the daily E15, was not published.

Fidurock, the Czech/Dutch company that owns Retail Park Trnava, has started to build phase II of the project, which is located in Western Slovakia, 44 km northeast of Bratislava. The extension of this retail park is planned to be completed by the end of this year.

YIT has started construction of the Happi Milánská project in Prague's Horní Měcholupy and has put 72 new Finnish-style apartments of up to 99 sqm on sale. The residential building with access to both the countryside and the city centre will also include three commercial spaces. The developer plans completion in spring 2024.

The footfall in Czech regional shopping centres remained almost unchanged despite the previous years of the pandemic and all the lockdowns. The turnover and the average basket increased, and the vacancy is stable. However, due to the 18-week lockdown, the year 2021 fell behind 2019 by about 15%. The biggest concern now comes from the inflation and spending cuts reported by CBRE in its regular Shopping Centre Index analysis together with the results of two surveys on customer behaviour and expected plans of retailers.

The Prague office market in Q1 2022 experienced a further increase in vacancy, across the entire city. However, gross take-up recorded a year-on-year increase of 44% and thus returned to pre-pandemic levels. The increase in prices throughout the city is still felt especially in construction projects, mainly due to rising costs for materials and construction work, reports the Czech branch of Colliers in their regular survey.

The number of completed flats in the Czech Republic increased in the year 2021 by half a percent. A total of 34,581 flats were completed last year. However, the rising figures are due to extensions, while the number of flats completed in detached and apartment buildings fell. In the future, according to statisticians, it can be assumed that new construction will decline for many reasons, writes the Czech News Agency (ČTK) based on the statistics published today by the Czech Statistical Office (CSO).

CPI Property Group is going into large-scale renovations of shopping centres to reduce costs and improve food courts. The Nisa shopping centre in Liberec is to undergo extensive reconstruction for a cost of CZK 1 billion. The Futurum shopping centre in Hradec Králové is to be modernised at a cost of CZK 200 million. This is another of the planned modernisations of shopping centres to make them more attractive to customers and bring higher profits, reports the daily E15.

The demand for office space in Prague increased by 29% quarter-on-quarter for the first quarter of 2021 and by 44% year-on-year. Although the largest transactions of the quarter were lease renegotiations – including Seznam.cz (14,800 sqm) in Palác Křižík in Prague 5 or MSD Czech Republic (6,800 sqm) in Riverview in Prague 5 – the share of newly leased space increased to 58%. The increase in newly leased and pre-leased space indicates confidence and healthy growth of the Prague office market. Despite the fact that leasing activity posted record numbers, the vacancy rate rose by 60 basis points quarter-on-quarter to 8.4%. JLL recorded an increase in vacancy rates in almost all Prague districts, as announced in the last report.