Equilibrium 2, the second phase of the Equilibrium project developed by Skanska in northern Bucharest, has obtained the preliminary Net Zero Carbon Buildings certification, granted by the Romania Green Building Council (RoGBC).

Romanian property company Eden Capital Development has secured the construction permit for a new residential complex in northern Bucharest and plans to kick off the building phase this autumn.

Centerscape Investments has closed the acquisition of a retail park portfolio from Hunter REIM. Avison Young represented the seller in the transaction.

CPI Property Group is going into large-scale renovations of shopping centres to reduce costs and improve food courts. The Nisa shopping centre in Liberec is to undergo extensive reconstruction for a cost of CZK 1 billion. The Futurum shopping centre in Hradec Králové is to be modernised at a cost of CZK 200 million. This is another of the planned modernisations of shopping centres to make them more attractive to customers and bring higher profits, reports the daily E15.

Panattoni is opening up another market - this time the developer has chosen Radom, the largest city in Mazowsze following Warsaw. The Panattoni Park Radom distribution centre, which will have an area of 44,200 sqm at full build-out, is being constructed 10 minutes from the S7 and 10 km from Warsaw-Radom airport. The first two buildings with a combined area of 13,500 sqm are to be completed at the end of 2022/beginning of 2023 and they already have tenants from the logistics and grocery sectors. 

The Polish warehouse market continues to strengthen its European position. The market’s already high demand was further boosted in Q1 2022 by increased activity in the manufacturing sector.

The Slovak construction market is the smallest among the member countries of the Euroconstruct area. Due to its size, it is significantly more affected by both favourable and unfavourable influences. Overall, the private sector contributes more to construction investment than the public sector. With one exception, civil engineering, where public investment is higher. In residential construction private investment exceeds public. This can be attributed to a widely neglected public rental housing programme in Slovakia, writes Radovan Kostelník from ÚEOS Komercia in his study for the independent organization Euroconstruct that unites research organisations from 19 EU countries.

The demand for office space in Prague increased by 29% quarter-on-quarter for the first quarter of 2021 and by 44% year-on-year. Although the largest transactions of the quarter were lease renegotiations – including Seznam.cz (14,800 sqm) in Palác Křižík in Prague 5 or MSD Czech Republic (6,800 sqm) in Riverview in Prague 5 – the share of newly leased space increased to 58%. The increase in newly leased and pre-leased space indicates confidence and healthy growth of the Prague office market. Despite the fact that leasing activity posted record numbers, the vacancy rate rose by 60 basis points quarter-on-quarter to 8.4%. JLL recorded an increase in vacancy rates in almost all Prague districts, as announced in the last report.

Unlike logistics and retail assets, office buildings received less damage from the war in Ukraine, but it is still impossible to calculate the exact number of losses or destroyed office space. Iryna Nastych summarised the situation in an article prepared by the Ukrainian Real Estate Club for Property Forum.

As part of its 2022 Savills "Impacts" research programme, the global logistics sector has the wind behind it for the foreseeable future, with the main drivers being ecommerce, and the race for additional warehouse space to secure international company supply chains.