It’s at last becoming possible to assess the consequences for Croatia’s construction sector of the country’s July 2020 elections. Jockeying for governmental positions, COVID-19- and tourism-season-related priorities and other pressing matters prevented the new Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) led government from moving on its larger agenda until recently. Now, though, the political picture, and the impact of the elections on Croatia’s construction sector, is getting clearer, according to a report by the Eastern European Construction Forecasting Association.

Belgian real estate developer Speedwell is rapidly expanding in Romania with ongoing projects in Bucharest, Timisoara and Cluj-Napoca. Didier Balcaen, Founder and CEO of the company who will be a speaker at our upcoming SEE Property Forum 2020 in Bucharest, talked to us about Speedwell’s ongoing projects and shared his vision for handling the changes that COVID-19 has brought on the market.

VÚB banka and UniCredit Bank have provided developer J&T Real Estate with a €105 million syndicated loan for the construction of Eurovea’s extended residential part, which will include approximately 500 apartments in Eurovea Tower - Slovakia’s very first skyscraper - and waterfront residences (Eurovea Riverside). This loan is one of the largest granted for a Slovak development project in recent years. Dentons prepared the contract documentation.

Panattoni has started construction work on a factory for Danfoss Poland in Grodzisk Mazowiecki. The development with an area of 12,000 sqm will be equipped with several ecologically friendly systems that will make the building highly energy-efficient and also improve the conditions for the workforce of around 400 people. The building is scheduled to be completed in November 2021. It will be used as a place to manufacture components for the RAC (Refrigeration & Air Conditioning) business division.

Data centres are becoming an important segment of commercial real estate and the COVID-19 pandemic turned out to be an impulse for its accelerated growth. There are currently 115 data centres in Poland, of which the highest number is located in Warsaw (35), Katowice and Kraków (13 each). Axi Immo anticipates the market to develop further, especially following the decision by IT giants Google and Microsoft to add Warsaw to their list of global cloud regions, with a pledged investment of $2 billion and $1 billion respectively over the coming years. Axi Immo experts have prepared a report on the Polish data centre market, its requirements and specific features.

Budapest’s office vacancy rate has increased to 8.1% in Q3 2020, representing an increase of 2.2 pps year-on-year. 106 lease agreements were concluded during the quarter and the number of signed transactions dropped by 25% compared to the same quarter of 2019, according to BRF’s latest figures.

There was a monumental €26 billion (£23.5 billion) investment into the European data centre sector for the first half of 2020, despite the impact of COVID-19, according to a report by Knight Frank in partnership with DC Byte. This is over four times the $5 billion annual average figure and a colossal increase on last year’s $2 billion investment volumes. Take-up in H1 2020 was also 50% higher year-on-year at 282MW.

According to Savills’ latest research, Europe will see an additional 11.6 million sqm of warehouse demand due to the manufacturing sector by the end of 2022, based on Capital Economics forecasts data.

7R has won a tender to purchase 20 ha of land in the Pomeranian Logistics Centre. On the plot, the developer will build the 7R Park Gdańsk Port complex, with a total area of approx. 123,000 sqm. The land property is located in the immediate vicinity of the Port of Gdańsk, and the largest deepwater terminal in the Baltic Sea – DCT Gdańsk.

JLL has appointed Mateusz Bonca as CEO of Poland, effective mid-November. He will be based in Warsaw.