Skanska helps introduce the WELL Building Standard (WELL) to the market of Central and Eastern Europe. WELL is the preeminent building standard to focus on enhancing people’s health and well-being through the built environment. Spark is one of the first office buildings to pursue WELL Certification in Poland. Skanska will also apply for certification for its projects developed in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania.

Wing is transforming the Material Center building in Budapest, which until now has operated as a shopping mall, into an office building. The building, which has an area of over 20,000 square metres, will be fully converted and renovated to a high standard, to be reborn as the Skylight City office centre. The preparatory works have already begun, and offices are already available for rental in the building.

Demolition is underway at the corner of Wenceslas Square and Opletalova Street in Central Prague, where a new mixed-used scheme will be developed by UK-owned Flow East. The new building, designed by Chapman Taylor, is to be called Květinový dům (Flower House, also known as VN47) and will comprise 19,500 sqm of office and retail space across nine floors. It will be constructed with the aim of achieving BREEAM ‘Excellent’ status. Flow East is expected to invest app. €37 million (CZK1 billion) into the project. 

Demand continues to be strong on the Budapest office market and with new supply still limited the vacancy rate decreased further in Q1 2017. It now stands at 9.2% which is the lowest rate on record. The Budapest Research Forum published its newest figures.

Apart from Nowa Fabryczna - the first office building in Nowe Centrum Łodzi – Skanska will also develop its newest project, Brama Miasta in the city of Łódź. The two office buildings, with leasable office space totalling 40,000 sqm, will be able to accommodate up to 4,000 employees. Construction is to be launched in H1 2017.

GTC has signed an €11.4 million investment loan with Berlin Hyp Bank for the refinancing of the previous loan agreement for the Corius office building. The Class A office building offers a total leasable area of over 9,700 sqm and is GOLD LEED certificated.

Vastint Poland was awarded LEED-Platinum for the first phase of Business Garden Wrocław. Once completed, the complex will comprise nine office and retail buildings with a total leasable area of 117,000 sqm.  

Cushman & Wakefield has been appointed property manager of the Prosta Tower office building in Warsaw. A special open-ended real estate fund managed by Credit Suisse Real Estate Investment Management Germany is the owner of the scheme. The property management agreement was signed in December 2016.

2016 saw a total of 585,700 sqm of office space leased on the eight largest regional markets in Poland (Kraków, Wrocław, Tri-City, Katowice, Poznań, Łódź, Szczecin and Lublin). Wrocław accounted for 124,500 sqm of this overall volume. This excellent result meant that Lower Silesia's capital city was second among regional markets, after Kraków, in terms of office demand. JLL summarised 2016 on the office market in Wrocław.

Nearly half a million square meters of modern office space was delivered to the office market in the key Polish regional cities in 2016. The leader’s position was retained by Kraków, Lesser Poland’s capital, followed by, amongst others, Wrocław and the Tri-City. According to the report’s authors at BNP Paribas Real Estate Poland, current pipeline projects will also support the high growth dynamics in 2017.