Warburg-HIH Invest Real Estate GmbH has kicked off the process of converting its European real estate portfolio to green energy. The Hamburg-based investment manager successfully implemented the new energy supply for the LEED Platinum-certified White House office building in the Hungarian capital of Budapest in partnership with operating costs expert Westbridge International AG. The move will cut the building’s carbon emissions by just under 2,700 tonnes within the next three years. The fully let building is part of an open-ended special alternative investment fund (AIF) managed by Warburg-HIH Invest.

Cushman & Wakefield will act as the sole agent responsible for the commercialisation of the Łódź 1 office building of the Prime Holdings Group.

The Mennica Legacy Tower high-rise, located at the junction of Prosta and Żelazna streets in Warsaw’s Wola district, has obtained a valid occupancy permit. The main tenant, mBank, will move into the 140-metre-tall building as early as November.

CBRE was appointed by developer Skanska to provide property management services for the Campus 6.2 and Campus 6.3 office buildings, located in the central-western area of Bucharest. The two projects total 38,000 sqm, increasing the portfolio managed by CBRE in Romania to approximately 840,000 sqm of office space and shopping centres.

The office market in Bucharest continues to grow, with 124,000 of modern office space delivered in the first nine months of the year ​​388,000 sqm more in the pipeline, according to Cushman & Wakefield Echinox. The commercial stock of office buildings in Bucharest reaches about 2.9 million square meters with an additional 150,000 sqm of owner-occupied stock.

The number of state-owned companies relying on modern office space is on the rise, reveals Savills. The public sector and state-owned firms more than doubled their share in office take-up in Warsaw in Q1-Q3 2020 compared to last year. What’s more, Savills estimates that negotiations are pending for more than the amount of office space leased by this sector in the nine months to September 2020.

238,300 sqm of office space was delivered to the Warsaw office market in the first three quarters of 2020, reveals Cushman & Wakefield. Due to the worsening sentiment of market participants, prime headline rents edged down by €0.25/sqm/month, standing at €23.75/sqm/month in the centre and at €14.75/sqm/month in non-central locations.

During the first nine months of 2020, developers completed over 530,000 sqm of office space in Poland: 231,600 in Warsaw and 305,000 sqm in eight major regional markets (Kraków, Wrocław, Tricity, Poznań, Łódź, Katowice, Lublin and Szczecin). Due to the new supply and moderate demand, more than 1.2 million sqm of office space is now available. Axi Immo presented the latest data for the Polish office market as at the end of the third quarter of 2020.

Romanian lender BCR, part of Austria’s Erste Group Bank, has reportedly reached an agreement to sell the Bucharest Financial Plaza office building on Calea Victoriei that served as the headquarters of defunct state lender Bancorex.  The buyer is a German investor and the details of the deal will be announced in early December, Economica.net reports.

The 12-month rental outlook for both prime and secondary CBD offices is stable in Bucharest and Budapest and negative in Warsaw. In Prague, the outlook is negative for prime assets and stable for secondary assets. The vacancy rate is expected to increase over the coming year in all of the four capital cities. Occupier conditions are currently neutral across the region, with Bucharest and Budapest expected to become tenant markets over the next 12 months, according to Colliers International.