P3 has signed new leasing contracts with two companies in Romania, Coca-Cola HBC Romania and Mobexpert. The total space leased by the two companies in P3 Bucharest A1 park is of 5,000 sqm.

BNP Paribas Real Estate has appointed Karel Bor as the new Managing Director in the Czech Republic. Karel Bor brings with him over 20 years of professional experience within the real estate industry including brokerage, advisory and property development.  

Nearly 70,200 sqm of office space is currently under construction on Katowice’s office market, according to Cushman & Wakefield. Of the six projects underway, the largest is Face2Face Business Campus, comprising two phases with a total of 46,800 sqm.

Cordia, a major player in the Hungarian market owning numerous property developments in Romania and in three Polish cities, has started construction of its tallest residential property ever in Warsaw. Being built on the shore of Vistula river, the 164-apartment premium-class building offers easy access to any part of the Polish capital.

MLP Group is set to build a second logistics park in the Wrocław area. The MLP Wrocław West project will deliver a total of 70,000 sqm of modern space, the first handovers slated for October 2020.

Lublin’s total office stock remained unchanged at the end of June 2019, flatlining at 191,200 sqm, according to Cushman & Wakefield. Despite the lack of new supply, occupier activity was healthy, which pushed the city’s vacancy rate down to 10.6%, representing a 9.1 pp decrease year-on-year.

As we are nearing the end of the cycle and investors are looking to diversify their portfolios, student housing’s counter-cyclical nature is becoming increasingly attractive. Samuel Vetrak, CEO of Bonard, talked to Property Forum about recent developments on the European student housing market. Samuel will also chair a panel discussion on student housing at the upcoming CEE Property Forum 2019 in Vienna.

FLE GmbH, a company of the LFPI group, has acquired its eighth property in Budapest on behalf of the Luxemburg based fund FLE SICAV FIS.

Blackstone announced the final close of its latest global real estate fund, Blackstone Real Estate Partners IX. BREP IX has $20.5 billion of total capital commitments — the largest real estate fund ever raised. Blackstone is also currently investing two regional opportunistic funds, the €7.9 billion BREP Europe V and the $7.2 billion BREP Asia II.

The office space market in Prague is currently doing very well and has a great potential for further development. Its excellent condition is illustrated by several parameters that Cushman & Wakefield has been monitoring on a long-term basis and whose correct interpretation in relation to the current results is presented here. These indicators are primarily the highly positive trend in the office demand (the occupied office space increased by 47,000 sqm), vacancy rate remaining at its record-breaking low (with just 4.6% of stock being vacant) and the highest number of newly opened buildings in the last five years (17 buildings including 11 newly built ones).