The vacancy rate in the Czech Republic industrial market reached 4.2%, having decreased by 96 bps since Q4 2015. The Industrial Research Forum has announced its final industrial market figures for Q1 2016. 

The vacancy rate on the Budapest industrial market declined 2 percentage points to a level below 10%. The Budapest Research Forum has published its Q1 2016 industrial market snapshot.

Prologis announced that it has begun development of a 21,000 square metre speculative facility at Prologis Park Budapest-Sziget. This will be the first speculative logistics building in the Hungarian market since 2008. Completion is scheduled for the third quarter of 2016.

Prologis has announced that it has completed a 30,000 square metre expansion of a distribution facility in Rawa Mazowiecka – located in Central Poland – for Pepco, a leading clothing and houseware retailer. Construction ended three weeks ahead of schedule. Once operational, the facility will serve as Pepco’s Central European distribution hub.  

In February 2016, JLL´s Industrial Agency has successfully negotiated the lease agreement on behalf of Autodoprava Hod in VALAD Uhříněves Industrial Park.

Prologis has announced that it will expand Prologis Park Prague D1 East by developing two additional buildings, DC8 and DC9, totalling 10,360 square metres, for which two pre-leasing agreements have been signed prior to construction.

The Central and Eastern European region has achieved a significant improvement in its desirability as a logistics location. 8 sites from the region have successfully made it to the top 20 list of most popular European locations, which is a 100 percent increase since 2013. Prologis VP Laszlo Kemenes (MRICS) analysed the trends that shape the real-estate market in and around Budapest, and talked about the future projects of the company.

Prologis has announced that it has signed a lease agreement with Linemart, a third-party logistics provider owned by Shenzhen Sailvan Network, a China-based e-commerce company, for 18,166 square metres of distribution space at Prologis Park Prague-Airport DC1. The transaction was facilitated by 108 Agency.

Annual total leasing activity on the Budapest industrial property market equated to 353,220 sq m in 2015, which was just slightly (5.5%) below the 2014 record volume. The vacancy rate declined 5 percentage points during the year, bottoming out at 10.6% at the end of 2015.

Both the development and take-up of industrial parks in Central Europe is continuing and slightly accelerating in comparison with last year, according to research from Cushman & Wakefield. The appetite for investing in commercial properties is also increasing, with a shortage on the supply side making buyers willing to pay more. This trend is most obvious for logistic and production facilities. Cushman & Wakefield’s report covers Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania.