HB Reavis has received a new syndicated loan from Erste Group and Raiffeisen Bank International Group (RBI Group) for the construction and development of Agora Budapest. The recently signed facility amount of €140 million makes it one of the largest in the Hungarian real estate sector. The financing club is led by Erste Group as book-runner and facility agent. Erste Group and RBI Group will finance the Agora Budapest project with equal parts.

Kraków is continuing its good run as Poland's second largest office market. During the first six months, lease contracts for nearly 135,000 sqm were signed in Kraków which equates to 44% of demand for modern office space outside Warsaw. The most notable transactions in H1 2019 signed both in Kraków and in the largest regional markets in Poland were a record pre-let by UBS for 19,600 sqm in Fabryczna Office Park, a pre-let by Sabre for almost 16,000 sqm in the Tischnera Office, and an 11,200 sqm renewal by Akamai in the Vinci Office Building.

JLL will be responsible for leasing commercial space in Airport City Gdańsk. Construction of the complex, whose usable area will ultimately total approximately 120,000 sqm, will start at the end of this year.

The number of office schemes built in Prague this year is the highest in the last five years: a total of 17 new buildings providing office space will have opened by the end of the year. The last time the market reached such a high figure was in 2014 – at the time, it was 18 schemes. In the meantime, the number was one-third lower, about 11 buildings on average.

Do Polish public administration units move with the times? It turns out that more and more of them indeed do - the number of state-owned institutions that have decided to lease space in modern office buildings have markedly increased in the past few years, according to JLL’s latest report.

Nearly 70,200 sqm of office space is currently under construction on Katowice’s office market, according to Cushman & Wakefield. Of the six projects underway, the largest is Face2Face Business Campus, comprising two phases with a total of 46,800 sqm.

Lublin’s total office stock remained unchanged at the end of June 2019, flatlining at 191,200 sqm, according to Cushman & Wakefield. Despite the lack of new supply, occupier activity was healthy, which pushed the city’s vacancy rate down to 10.6%, representing a 9.1 pp decrease year-on-year.

The office space market in Prague is currently doing very well and has a great potential for further development. Its excellent condition is illustrated by several parameters that Cushman & Wakefield has been monitoring on a long-term basis and whose correct interpretation in relation to the current results is presented here. These indicators are primarily the highly positive trend in the office demand (the occupied office space increased by 47,000 sqm), vacancy rate remaining at its record-breaking low (with just 4.6% of stock being vacant) and the highest number of newly opened buildings in the last five years (17 buildings including 11 newly built ones).

Kraków’s total office stock amounts to nearly 1.35 million sqm. According to reports from developers, more than 110,000 sqm is expected to be completed by the end of 2019, pushing this year’s new supply up to a record high of 200,000 sqm, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

The first half of 2019 witnessed two new office completions in Szczecin totalling nearly 3,500 sqm, whilst another 27,300 sqm is expected to be added to the city’s stock by the end of this year.