The Czech Republic has one of the longest and most complicated building procedures in the world and is ranked 156 out of 190 countries observed by The World Bank. Fortunately for real estate developers, the situation is slowly changing. Erwin Hanslik MRICS, Partner and CEE Head of Real Estate at Taylor Wessing talked to us about the legal and regulatory challenges investors and developers need to face in the Czech Republic.

During its reconstruction, Eden Park Handlowy in Zgorzelec, Poland has changed its format from a shopping centre into a retail park with the total GLA increasing to 10,000 sqm. At the moment the park is actively filling its leasing areas. Agreements have been signed with several companies recently.

OTP Real Estate Investment Fund has acquired the 26,000 sqm Roosevelt office building in central Budapest. The seller was Munich-based GLL Real Estate Partners (GLL).

Radisson Hotel Group has announced the signing of its fourth Radisson Blu property in Romania, the Radisson Blu Hotel, Cluj-Napoca – based in the regional capital of Transylvania. The hotel is to open in spring 2021.

Českomoravská Nemovitosti has acquired the BLOX office building in Prague's Dejvice district for more than €77 million (CZK 2 billion). The building's primary tenant is Amazon.  The acquisition was financed by ČSOB.

Resi4Rent, the first institutional privately-run platform of apartments for rent in Poland, has been granted a use permit to its first building at Rychtalska street in Wrocław. Fitting-out works of apartments are in progress and soon residents will move into the building.

The number of office schemes built in Prague this year is the highest in the last five years: a total of 17 new buildings providing office space will have opened by the end of the year. The last time the market reached such a high figure was in 2014 – at the time, it was 18 schemes. In the meantime, the number was one-third lower, about 11 buildings on average.

The importance of new locations on the industrial real estate market in Poland looks set to rapidly grow - this is the conclusion that can be drawn from the “Small town, big deal” report prepared by JLL in cooperation with Hillwood Poland and ManpowerGroup. The so-called Big Five (Warsaw, Upper Silesia, Central Poland, Poznań and Wrocław) still remain the growth engine and continuously attract the majority of investments. However, cities such as Konin, Kielce and Częstochowa are the rising stars of the Polish industrial market.

Cordia is now increasing its capital exports and foreign investments. In addition to the Romanian and Polish market, the company also has presence in Spain with a pilot project. All of this fits into Cordia’s strategy to become a dominant property developer at European level, while maintaining Hungary's key role in the company’s operation.

JLL Slovakia announced the appointment of Rudolf Nemec, MRICS as the new Head of Capital Markets, effective from 1st of September. Rudolf has had an intensive 6 years of professional experience at JLL during which he has worked on all major real estate transactions in Slovakia. In his new role, Rudolf will be responsible for building and maintaining strong business relationships with existing and new clients active predominantly in Slovakia and CEE. He brings expertise, enthusiasm, profound market knowledge and a clear understanding of the Capital Markets transactional business.