Free office space is dwindling in the Czech Republic. The office vacancy rate in Brno, as well as in Prague, has slipped below 10%. Both cities experience the lowest rate of vacant offices in the last decade. Brno recorded a sharp decline by 2.4 percentage points in H1 2017, while in the capital demand totalled 153,500 sqm in Q2 2017, up 45% on the previous quarter and 36.9% year-on-year. Overall, more than 370 deals were closed in Prague in H1 2017, many of which were pre-leases. In contrast, in Brno there was an 8% drop in lettings compared to H2 2016.

Cushman & Wakefield was appointed manager of 18 commercial properties in Poland owned by German Deka Immobilien. The properties comprise 473,363 sqm.

Helaba, Berlin Hyp and pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank have jointly underwritten an investment facility totaling €370 million to refinance the Warsaw Spire Office complex. The assets are owned by the newly established Ghelamco European Property Fund. The transaction closed in August 2017. Helaba, Berlin Hyp and pbb are acting as joint lead arrangers providing equal portions of the funding, with Helaba acting as facility and security agent of the transaction.

Atenor has acquired 19,000 sqm of land on Hungária körút, one of the main road corridors in Budapest. The site provides an opportunity to build a campus of 4 office buildings with commercial spaces covering approximately 85,500 sqm, which will be developed in different phases. Permit application for the first building is set to be submitted by the end of the year, allowing construction to begin in 2018.

The handover of the second office building one month ahead of schedule completed the construction of the West Station scheme next to the Warszawa Zachodnia station. With an area of 38,000 sqm, the new building is one of the largest built in Warsaw this year. More companies have just shown their appreciation for its offices by leasing over 8,300 sqm of space.

Bog’Art has been selected to build the new Bucharest headquarters of Renault, according to zf.ro. The new office building, to be named Renault Connected Bucharest, will comprise 47,000 sqm of office space.

JLL has been selected as the exclusive leasing agent for office and retail space located in Ghelamco's biggest investment in Poland to date, The Warsaw HUB. The complex will consist of three skyscrapers and it will offer approx. 113,000 sqm of multi-functional space.

Colliers International was assigned by Piraeus Bank to offer property management services for the office project The Landmark, in the central area of Bucharest. With this new project, the Colliers International team strengthens its position on the office property management market, and the whole managed portfolio reaches a total of over 320,000 leasable sqm.

BNP Paribas Real Estate Poland acting as the exclusive agent commenced the process of recommercialisation of the Class A office space in the Diamante Plaza building in Kraków on behalf of the building’s owner, Aldesa, a leading Spanish construction company.

The new office and retail scheme located at Wronia 31 has as of 1 July joined the portfolio of properties managed by BNP Paribas Real Estate Poland. The property with the total leasable area of approx. 16,000 sqm is located in Wola’s heart in the direct vicinity of Plac Europejski. Ghelamco is the investor and developer responsible for the scheme.