InterContinental Romania has finalized the hotel operating contract with IHG Hotel & Resorts so the name of the property in central Bucharest will be changed to Grand Hotel Bucharest. 

CA Immo has selected international consultancy agency JLL as the exclusive agent responsible for the commercialisation of three buildings in its portfolio in Poland - Sienna Center, Bitwy Warszawskiej Business Center and Warsaw Spire C.

CBRE has appointed Carmen Ravon as Head of Retail Occupiers for Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in a bid to consolidate operations in the region.

The office market is changing due to the coronavirus pandemic, albeit not as dramatically as initially expected. Offices as a concept are definitely not over and working from home is not becoming a lasting standard – it has been confirmed that it has its limitations and that personal contact is irreplaceable. A hybrid model, combining working in the office and at home, will likely be more common. Office space take-up is still below the pre-crisis figures, but the activity on the market has been growing recently. For the time being, the growth has not been enough to justify the growth in rental prices that would be necessary due to an increase in construction material prices, but both can be expected to grow in the future. The crisis has halted the progress of some schemes, so we will not see a major increase in new office stock before 2023. This could result in demand overhang, and thus in increased rents in the years to come, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

Discount retailers are predicted to find the CEE market very attractive as evidence shows shoppers have favoured the ‘value for money’ approach these retailers provide, reveals a new report by Colliers.

Panattoni has secured another major lease for its new project, Panattoni Park Wrocław XIII. LX Pantos, one of the largest logistics operators in Korea and Southeast Asia, will occupy as much as 43,500 sqm in the new park – more than three times as much as it originally planned.

Hungarian asset manager Futureal Investment Partners has made its second acquisition – the Wratislavia Towers mixed-use development in Wrocław city centre. The value of the transaction remains undisclosed.

Resi Capital S.A., a company belonging to Cavatina Group, wants to deliver 2,200 apartments for rent in Katowice, Krakow, Łódź and Wrocław by 2023. The Quorum investment in Wrocław and WIMA Widzewska Manufaktura in Łódź are already under construction. Bank Pekao S.A. has just granted Resi Capital financing exceeding PLN 160 million in the form of loans for the realization of these housing projects.

The former Prologis Park Ziar in Žiar nad Hronom, located in Slovakia’s Banská Bystrica region, has been acquired by Tatra Asset Management. CBRE Slovakia and Ružička and Partners s. r. o. represented Prologis in the transaction.

The price of newly built homes in Budapest rose more than 8% in the three months between August and November and the average price per square metre is now nearly HUF 1.1 million (€3,000), Eltinga’s latest Budapest Housing Report shows. Below is a breakdown of new home prices by district.