Swissôtel, part of AccorHotels, has entered into a franchise agreement with Al Shiddi International for the development of a new 218-room urban resort scheduled to open in early 2018. Situated next to Bosnian Parliament, within the mixed-use Sarajevo City Center project, consisting of shopping mall and office tower, Swissôtel Sarajevo will be located in the Bosnian capital’s centre.

MAS Real Estate, a commercial property investor, developer and operator listed in both Johannesburg and Luxembourg, announced the acquisition of two shopping malls in Bulgaria, for €62 million. The malls have been acquired from Globe Trade Centre and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The Galleria Burgas Mall and the Galleria Stara Zagora Mall and are located in the Bulgarian cities of Burgas and Stara Zagora, respectively.

Futureal Group sold its Skypark office building to the OTP Prime Property Investment Fund. The recently closed transaction increased the value of the fund’s property portfolio to over HUF40 billion. The complex, with 25,000 square meters of GLA, is located at the Corvin Promenade mixed use project in the center of Budapest and was designed to meet the needs of technology and R&D companies.

The first quarter of 2017 saw only one office building delivered to the Prague market. Strong demand from tenants helped the vacancy rate decrease by 1.1 percentage points to 9.4%.The Prague Research Forum announced the office market figures for Q1 2017.

JLL has been selected by Skanska Property Poland as the Property Manager of Nowa Fabryczna office building, part of the Nowe Centrum Łodzi urban redevelopment project. The building will be taken over by JLL management on 30th June 2017.

Cushman & Wakefield has renewed and rebranded its exclusive arrangement with Forton as its affiliate in Bulgaria and Macedonia. The formal affiliate appointment follows the 2015 global merger of Cushman & Wakefield and DTZ. Forton has been Cushman & Wakefield’s partner since 2006. From today, Forton will rebrand as Cushman & Wakefield Forton.   

14 outlet centres operating in Poland eye the increasing competition which will force numerous of them to undergo qualitative changes, enhance their offer and improve operational performance. Along with increasing wealth of Polish consumers, the premium offer will grow in outlet centres, according to new report “Bargain hunting. Potential of outlet centres in Poland” released by Colliers International and IQS.

Skanska helps introduce the WELL Building Standard (WELL) to the market of Central and Eastern Europe. WELL is the preeminent building standard to focus on enhancing people’s health and well-being through the built environment. Spark is one of the first office buildings to pursue WELL Certification in Poland. Skanska will also apply for certification for its projects developed in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania.

Colliers has been appointed by FID Group as the Property Manager of Slovanský Dům and by B.H.Centrum a.s. as the Property Manager of Millennium which forms part of the complex including the Marriott Hotel. Both buildings are prime mixed-use properties situated in the heart of Prague’s CBD.

With an impressive 66% growth of retail sales per capita since 2004, Poland stands second to none in Europe. Over the past five years both the retail stock and the retail sales have been growing steadily at the level of 20% cumulatively, according to an analysis released by Cushman & Wakefield. Forecasts for the next decade show a further 40% growth of retail spending per capita, which demonstrates growing affluence of the Polish society.