The Black Sea Trade and Development Bank (BSTDB) has extended a €50 million loan to One United Tower S.A. to facilitate the development of business infrastructure in Romania. 

Torus has sold the fourth and final stage of the Alchemia business complex in Gdansk - the Neon office building. The buyer is global real estate investment manager DWS, on behalf of one of its German retail real estate funds. The net value of the transaction is over €80 million.

GTC has been awarded the Very Good BREEAM certificate for one of its Warsaw assets, the Artico office building. Thus, the company has successfully completed the green adaptation process for all its Polish commercial assets.

Speedwell and Erste Group Bank signed a financing agreement of €27 million for the development of MIRO, a Class A office project the company is building in the northern part of Bucharest.

The key pandemic-related trends on the Polish office market of 2020 include the transformation of the way work we work and where we work. This prompted many occupiers to redefine their needs regarding the size of the office and the way the office is arranged. Equally important was ensuring workplace safety, also through new technological solutions. As a result of the pandemic and the lockdown measures, both development and leasing activity decreased slightly last year. Demand came mostly from new contracts and renewals. The AXI IMMO advisory firm summarises market conditions in 2020 and explores current office space trends in Poland.

Managed by Colliers and owned by AMASI Grundstücksgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG., the Warsaw office building Prosta Office Centre has been awarded a BREEAM certificate at Very Good level. The rating applies to both the Building Efficiency (Part 1) and the Management Efficiency (Part 2) parts of the certificate.

BCR Romania is working on a project that takes into account the increased demand for telework and flexible offices in the two buildings in Bucharest where it has rented offices, which can lead to a reduction of workplaces, Economica.net informs. 

In 2020, office take-up hit its lowest level in ten years amid pandemic headwinds despite the largest-ever single lease contract signed to date and one of the highest volumes of new office space coming onto the Warsaw market on record, says real estate advisory firm Savills. Rents remained resilient and the overall vacancy rate is still below the levels last seen during the previous supply peak five years ago.

Skanska’s has commenced construction on its new project in Prague’s Holešovice district. Based on an architectural design by the DAM.architekti studio, Port7 will include 3 new administrative buildings, which upon planned completion in the second quarter of 2023 will offer 35,000 sqm of office and retail space.

In 2020 the coronavirus pandemic pushed Poland into its first recession in 30 years following a GDP contraction of around 2.8%. According to Moody’s forecasts, implications of the second wave of the pandemic will reverberate through the economy also during the first quarter of 2021. The second quarter is, however, likely to see a recovery and this year’s GDP growth is expected to reach approximately 4%. Cushman & Wakefield summarised 2020 on the Warsaw office market.