As the pandemic forced many of us to shift a work-from-home routine, some people predicted that “the office is a dead concept” and that it will never return. I would agree that the office as we knew it is actually really dead, but the “new office” is here and all of us need to adapt to it, writes Petr Florián, Associate Director, Office Leasing at Avison Young in the Czech Republic for Property Forum in an opinion piece.

Logistics provider Maracana has signed a lease to expand its warehouse capacity to over 10,000 sqm in MLP Bucharest West, in a deal brokered by real estate consultancy JLL Romania.

Bratislava's iconic Pradiareň 1900 building is now wholly owned by investment group RSJ, which has bought the entire stake of the other co-owner YIT Slovakia. The total value of the transaction is approximately €35 million. RSJ announced the change in ownership structure on its website.

Vacancy went further up and only three new buildings have been added to the Budapest office market in the first quarter of 2022. Total demand reached 80,750 sqm, representing a 7% increase year-on-year, the Budapest Research Forum (BRF) reports.

The Polish Chamber of CommercialReal Estate (PINK) has published figures summarizing the office market in eight major regional markets in Poland (Kraków, Wrocław, the Tri-City, Katowice, Poznań, Łódź, Lublin, Szczecin) for Q1 2022. The data is sourced from advisory companies from the commercial real estate sector (BNP Paribas Real Estate, CBRE, Colliers, Cushman & Wakefield, JLL, Knight Frank, Newmark, Savills) and includes information on existing modern office stock, new completions, take-up volumes and vacancy rates.

Real estate advisory firm Savills estimates that the prices of building materials for new commercial real estate construction in Poland increased by close to 30% in the past 12 months and expects demand for technical consultancy to grow. The Building & Project Consultancy team of Savills Poland has summarised its activity in 2021, a year in which it completed close to 60 projects for commercial properties with a combined area of 1.5 million sq m and almost doubled its headcount.

Office Warsaw faces major challenges: deteriorating macroeconomic indicators, rising construction and utility costs, and upward pressure on rents and service charges. In addition, there are delays resulting from broken supply chains, the spectre of a supply gap and a strong reshuffling in the demand structure. On the other hand, the capital city market reports a quarterly record in lease agreements signed and attracts an IT giant that buys one of the newest office-mixed use complexes; all this is according to the summary of the first quarter in the Warsaw office market prepared by BNP Paribas Real Estate Poland experts.

IWG plans to add thousands of locations in the upcoming period as it sees pent-up demand for flexible office spaces across the world. At MIPIM, Property Forum talked to Thomas Sinclair, Chief Investment Officer and Giles Bateman MRICS, Regional Development Director – Continental Europe at IWG about the benefits of flexible spaces for corporates and the post-pandemic development of offices.

The latest report from research firm Spectis indicates that following a strong start to the year, the outlook for the construction sector over the coming months of 2022 is now less bright. The expected slowdown can be indirectly caused by the ongoing war in Ukraine, which only aggravates the problems the market has been facing previously, such as soaring prices of raw materials, building materials, and energy sources or the shortage of labour.

7R has built a BTS format warehouse in Goleniów for FIEGE, a European logistics operator. From the end of March FIEGE runs in Goleniów an international distribution centre, on an area of nearly 62,500 sqm, for a well-known global e-commerce giant.