The Echo-Archicom Group closes the year 2022 with a strong cash position and further reduced the company's net debt. This is the result of selling seven office buildings worth nearly €320 million. In 2022, the Group generated a net profit of PLN 127 million attributable to shareholders of the parent company, which was mainly the outcome of handing over to customers 2,168 apartments for sale and rent built by Echo Investment and Archicom, as well as an increase in the value of office buildings and apartments for rent.

More than three-quarters (76%) of Europe’s office buildings are at risk of obsolescence by the end of this decade unless landlords invest in improvements or find alternative uses for it. This is the warning from Cushman & Wakefield in its latest report.

The Echo-Archicom 2030 strategy is to follow a road map that lays out year by year how both companies are to decarbonize through zero-emission developments while further increasing the role of greenery in the group’s projects and supporting appropriate city development. The developers also intend to provide their employees with equal career and training opportunities, maximize construction site safety and strengthen its corporate governance.

In 2022, the Polish industrial and warehouse market maintained its solid growth momentum despite headwinds such as project financing constraints and rising occupancy costs. The expected decline in new supply and shrinking land availability are likely to result in a supply gap in the space of the next year or so, says real estate advisory firm Savills.

CTP is entering the Pomeranian regional warehouse market in northern Poland - the construction begins at CTPark Gdańsk Port. The Park is set to be the first investment in that region in the company's portfolio with an overall cost of €72 million, including land acquisition, and a yield on cost of around 10%, and will offer tenants two buildings with a total area of almost 119,000 sqm. The first phase of the project is scheduled for completion in the fourth quarter of this year. 

Having delivered nearly 200,000 sqm in the Lublin region, Panattoni has purchased more than 10 ha within the Economic Activity Zone in Świdnik and has started construction of Panattoni Park Lublin IV. The investment will occupy 53,900 within two buildings and will be delivered later this year. The complex already has 3 tenants, including high-tech manufacturing companies.

Effective from the beginning of March 2023, Urszula Matej-Bil has been appointed Management Board Member responsible for marketing and communications at EPP, the largest asset manager of retail real estate located in Poland. She has been at the company since 2019 when she joined its structures as PR and Communications Director.

Panattoni has started the development of 25,000 sqm of speculative space on ul. Dostawcza in Łódź. It is to be a brownfield development built on the site of a former gas bottling plant. City Logistics Łódź VI is to be certified under BREEAM for a rating of ‘Excellent’ with the developer to take measures such as preparing the roofs for solar panel installations.

The prolonged conflict in Ukraine (the refugee wave) and the significantly reduced credit scores increase the demand for renting apartments and thus, affect the development of the PRS market in Poland. The institutional rental sector will also grow due to the changing perception of homeownership by young people, who value mobility and do not necessarily need to own a home. According to Eurostat data from 2021, about 30 percent of the population in the European Union live in rented apartments, while in Poland this number amounts to only about 13 percent. Paulina Brzeszkiewicz-Kuczyńska, Research and Data Manager at Avison Young Poland, summarises this sector's current situation. 

Property group Globalworth said its total combined portfolio value remained effectively unchanged at €3.2 billion during 2022 compared to 2021, while investments in logistics/light-industrial facilities in Romania and the refurbishment/repositioning of two mixed-use properties in Poland totaled €52.2 million.