In the new Panattoni Pilsen Digital Park on Pilsen’s Bory terraces, a fully automated plant for the production of 100% recyclable beverage cans will be built in the first phase. It will be used by American company Ball, a world leader in this industry. The investment will create almost 200 new jobs for a qualified workforce. The first building will occupy a third of the planned area. Ball is also setting up its own development centre in the same location.

Element Industrial, owned by businessman Ionuţ Dumitrescu, announces the start of a new project in Buftea Chitila area, near Bucharest. .

MLP Group has commenced a project to revitalise the first mid-urban business park in the city of Poznań. The largest of the seven renovated facilities has been leased by a distributor of household appliances and consumer electronics. The renovated facility, with a total area of 12,000 sqm, will be available for occupancy in the fourth quarter of 2021.

GLP, an investor and developer of logistics buildings and warehouses announced plans to introduce its ESG-focused European specification, as outlined in its best-practice European Design Guide, to all new logistics facilities in Poland.

CTP has completed the certification of its industrial real estate portfolio in Central and Eastern Europe. In total, 292 CTP buildings at around a hundred different locations in six countries have confirmed their BREEAM In-Use status at the Very Good level or higher. A number of properties have reached the Excellent level. This ranks the company as the greenest developer of industrial real estate in CEE.

Total leasing activity throughout 2020 on the Budapest industrial/logistics market amounted to 537,900 sqm, marking a 29% increase from the previous year and the second-highest annual volume on record. The Budapest Research Forum published its quarterly industrial/logistics market analysis.

Panattoni has announced another project in Wielkopolska. Panattoni Park Poznań East Gate is to be built on a 10 ha plot in the administrative district of Swarzędz near Poznań. This will be Panattoni’s first park to the east of Poznań. Construction work is starting in the second quarter of the year.

South African developer Fortress REIT is close to entering the Romanian logistics market by acquiring the logistic park in Chitila, owned by Element Industrial and Dedeman, according to Ziarul Financiar, which cites market sources.

European logistics real estate markets have not suffered last year from the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to fast-growing e-commerce and higher inventory levels of producers, the total expected take-up in 11 European countries of 23.6 million sqm for 2020 is only 3% down compared with the record year 2019. The forecasts for this year are even better with an expected take-up of 27 million sqm – an increase of 14%. Particularly large logistics real estate markets like Germany, France, the Netherlands and Poland are expected to grow substantially.

Amazon continues to invest in Poland and will create over 1,000 new permanent jobs in Swiebodzin within a year of opening. Its tenth facility in Poland will include advanced Amazon Robotics technology, with 3,000 robotic drive units supporting the company’s associates.