The owner of East-West Business Center, which is the oldest modern office building of Budapest, has decided to start refurbishment of their landmark property.
In the past five years, 99,000 sqm of office space have been renovated in Budapest. The responsibly minded owners of the buildings of the late 90’s and early 2000s had recognized the new demand, the importance of energy saving technologies and the sustainable property management; therefore, they invested significant capital in order to renovate their assets. The 10.1 % vacancy rate of the renewed office buildings is slightly less than that of the Budapest office market (10.3%). The take-up of the renewed spaces peaked in 2015 when 44,000 sq m of office spaces were rented.
“It has become a trend that after a large tenant vacates its offices the landlord starts to refurbish the building and these spaces are filled with new tenants soon after. Last year, the vacancy rate has declined by 18 basis points”, Judit Varga MRICS, Head of Office Agency at CBRE Budapest commented. The renewed office buildings attract tenants primarily with their high quality spaces, thus two-third of the new tenants arrive from medium-grade non Class A office buildings. There is a significant share of the tenants who move to new offices because of their expanding business. 38 percent of the tenants rent larger spaces than before.
Erste Ingatlan Kft., the owner of East-West Business Center, has also decided to prepare the refurbishment of its landmark property. Besides modernising the façade, remodelling the common areas and the rest rooms, and expanding the green areas (gardens and terraces), achieving the BREEAM “Very good” certification with the new property management system and initiating unique engineering solutions, are also among the aims of the landlord.
