In June 2018, Mint Investments successfully completed the acquisition of the shopping centre Breda & Weinstein in Opava from Avestus Capital Partners. The value of the transaction exceeded €60 million. Mint Investments originally developed and later asset managed this shopping centre for Avestus Capital Partners.

Promenade Gardens, a recently completed office building on Budapest’s Váci corridor, changed owners on 1 August 2018, when Erste Real Estate Fund purchased the 97% leased property from the developer, Budapest-based Horizon Development. The new, dual certified (LEED Gold and BREEAM Very Good) asset of 25,000 sqm has already been chosen by a number of international tenants such as Celanese and Citibank, with more signed deals to be revealed soon.

Gross take-up (including renegotiations) reached 313,300 sqm on the Czech industrial market, showing a quarterly decrease of 25%. The Industrial Research Forum announced the final industrial market figures for Q2 2018.

The end of the first semester has brought to light great achievements from regional cities in all real estate segments on the Romanian market. Bucharest has also performed well and, according to the real estate consultancy company Colliers International Romania, the prospects for the remainder of the year remain strong.

The boom continues. At the end of H1 2018, supply on Poland’s office markets exceeded 10 million sqm. Furthermore, 1.8 million sqm remains under construction, with 1.1 million sqm being developed outside Warsaw. JLL summarised the situation on the Polish office market in H1 2018.

Prologis has begun development of a Small Business Unit (SBU) facility totalling 13,000 square meters at its new Prologis Park Poznań III. The building is 14 percent pre-leased to Euro-net, the owner of RTV EURO AGD, a nationwide retail chain. Completion is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2018.

EPP announced the completion of its acquisition of the King Cross Marcelin Shopping Centre. The €91.1 million acquisition is EPP’s first entry into Poznan and brings the company’s portfolio to 19 retail projects.

CTP plans to invest €75 million in the acquisition of properties in Belgrade and Novi Sad as well as further developments all totalling 120,000 sqm of lettable area.

Office developers have for years been struggling with the speed of new technologies. While the innovation cycle in high tech lasts for around 18 months, the development process for office buildings still takes around five years. To ensure tenants and users have easy access to new solutions, Skanska has created an all-in-one operating system for office buildings and workplaces, which can be upgraded over time just like a smartphone.

Real estate developers pay special attention to the environment by developing efficient and sustainable, green certified projects. With a history of almost four years, the WELL Building Standard complements these certifications and shifts the attention from the built environment to the health of the employees. In Romania, this phenomenon is in its inception and Colliers International Romania is the first real estate consultancy company with a team of WELL professionals – two out of the five that are present on a national level.