Square 7 Properties and Belgian investment fund Mitiska REIM will open this week Giurgiu Shopping Park, which has a leasable area of 7,000 sqm. The general contractor of the project was Austrian construction firm Strabag. 

Toys distribution firm Viva Toys has purchased a 12,500 sqm logistics space as well as a land plot of 63,667 sqm from Aplast Wood Industry, a portfolio company of the CEE Special Situations Fund managed by EMSA Capital, for an undisclosed sum. The assets are based in a locality in Ilfov County, near Bucharest. 

Marriott International has agreed to open the first Sheraton hotel in the Hungarian capital. The grand opening is scheduled for June 2023. The new hotel will offer 105 rooms and a medium size conference facility and will be managed by Accent Hotel Management.

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.

When comparing the end of 2021 to 2022, there has been a significant increase in the supply of PRS units year-on-year in countries across Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), such as Hungary (+301%), Romania (+244%), Poland (+217%) and Bulgaria (+173%), reveals a report by Colliers.

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.

Czech group of real estate funds ZDR Investments has strengthened its position in the Slovak market. The company has acquired a retail park in Topoľčany for its Public fund. The acquisition expanded the Group’s portfolio to 64 properties with a total value of more than €516 million, ZDR announced.

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.