The BEM Center office building has been handed over and with it the first tenants have arrived, including the investor and developer Market Asset Management Zrt.

The construction of Bratislava Vydrica by Lucron is progressing. Currently, the sale of offices in office building V3 on the Danube embankment has been launched.

According to a recent report published by Newmark Polska, total office take-up in 2023 in the largest Polish regional cities surpassed 741,300 sqm - an increase of almost 19% year-on-year and 7% from the pre-pandemic 2019 peak. Meanwhile, issues related to ESG, functionality improvements, efficient office space management and optimisation of lease costs have filtered through into the vocabulary and strategies of tenants and developers alike.

The volume of vacant office space in Warsaw is shrinking as the number of office buildings under construction and delivered to the market is low and occupier demand remains stable, reveals BNP Real Estate Poland in its quarterly report. Meanwhile, older office buildings are undergoing refurbishment as approximately 70% of existing stock is energy inefficient.

Bucharest’s office stock edged close to 3.4 million sqm at the end of 2023, following the completion of projects with a combined area of 110,000 sqm last year. However, the market will see fewer deliveries by the end of 2025 as developers have put projects on hold due to uncertainties around demand caused by the adoption of hybrid work.

Existing office buildings will be increasingly sought after by companies due to a lacklustre development pipeline in Bucharest, which will continue to drive contract extension deals in Bucharest.

While 116,000 sqm of office spaces were leased in Bucharest during Q4 2023, the overall transactional volume climbed to 463,000 sqm during the whole year, marking an all time take-up record, according to a Cushman & Wakefield Echinox report.

Immofinanz Romania, part of CPI Property Group (CPIPG), is reportedly negotiating a partial sale of its Iride Business Park office complex located in northern Bucharest.

Genpact Romania, a provider of professional services firm, has extended its lease in Bucharest-based Hermes Business Campus, owned by Adventum Group, until 2032.

As of the end of 2023, Warsaw remains the leader in Poland’s office market, but the 61,000 sqm (-74% y/y) completed in the last 12 months was one of the lowest results in its history, says Axi Immo. The developer’s lower activity period seems to be over, as by 2026, some 150,000 sqm of new supply should be delivered each year. After a very good 2022, 2023 was not much worse. Between January and December 2023, tenants signed contracts for about 750,000 sqm, meaning the total volume of transactions was slightly 13% lower than the year before. Continued low supply in 2023 and stabilizing demand reduced the vacancy to 647,000 sqm (-11% y/y).