One of the world’s largest IT companies has picked New Apollo, currently under construction by HB Reavis in Bratislava’s New Nivy zone, as the new home for its Slovak operations. The new tenant will occupy almost 30,000 sqm of the building’s 48,000 sqm.

Colliers has become the exclusive advisor responsible for the commercialisation of the Fregata office complex, which is being built at Bronowicka Street in Szczecin. The completion of the first building is planned for 2023. 

HB Reavis has delivered the campus-style buildings of Forest, a project focused on incorporating natural elements and greenery into the urban scape of Poland's capital. Along with it, the company topped out the 120-metre-tall Forest tower.  

S Immo is ramping up its development activities in CEE with a new office project in Budapest. An ensemble consisting of three office buildings offering roughly 29,000 sqm of usable space will be built on Váci Road, one of the most important office locations in the Hungarian capital. The most significant structure is an 11-storey building located directly on Váci Road. The company plans to obtain sustainability certification according to BREEAM and WELL.

Over the year, since the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Poland, the Warsaw office market has seen a marked decrease in occupier demand and office stock under construction amid rising vacancy rates. Although the past 12 months have been challenging for the office sector, companies are no less keen to have an office of their own, says real estate advisory firm Savills.

At the end of Q1 2021, the total modern office stock in Poland's eight major regional markets amounted to 5,826,400 sqm. The largest office markets in Poland (following Warsaw) were Kraków (1,574,000 sqm), Wrocław (1,226,300 sqm) and the Tri-City (913,600 sqm). The Polish Chamber of Commercial Real Estate (PINK) has published figures on the office market in eight major regional markets (Kraków, Wrocław, the Tri-City, Katowice, Poznań, Łódź, Lublin, Szczecin) for Q1 2021.

In 2020, applications for building permits in Warsaw were pouring in, says Walter Herz. According to the Permits for the Construction of Office Buildings Warsaw 2016-2020 report, last year brought over a 40% increase in the number of filed applications for building permits for facilities offering office space in Warsaw, compared to the previous year.

Real estate developer AFI Europe Romania is investing around €1.6 million in the refurbishment of common spaces in the AFI Lakeview office project, in northern Bucharest. 

Warsaw's office sector saw the lowest volume of space under construction in 11 years along with relatively low tenant activity. However, the business services sector provides hope for the future. JLL has summarised the situation in the Warsaw office market at the end of the first quarter of 2021.

Property Forum’s latest online panel aimed to answer some of the many questions around the future of workplaces. Four experts, with the moderation of Csanád Csűrös, CEO of Property Forum, discussed workplace strategies for the post-COVID-19 world and their implications on the real estate industry.