Transactions of new office rental, relocation and pre-rental in Romania’s regional cities reached 70,393 sqm during 2022, which was 22% more than in 2021. Almost 90% of the lease deals were closed in cities that are university centres such as Iași, Cluj-Napoca and Timișoara,  according to a report by Fortim Trusted Advisors.

As for the whole of 2022, the annual new supply of office space represents approximately 75,400 sqm. Although the annual supply of newly-completed space increased by 34% year-on-year, total volume was again below the long-term average of approximately 130,000 sqm per year. 2023 is expected to bring about some changes and more extensive construction. This means the Prague office market should grow to the 4 million sqm mark by 2025. Also at the close of 2022, several consecutive quarters of rent price growth came to a halt. These findings come from a survey by Colliers.

Property developer Speedwell has secured the building permit for the office component of its mixed-use project Paltim located in Timișoara. 

The number of flexible offices in Romania climbed to 120 at the end of 2022, with 21 new coworking centres opened in the post-pandemic period, according to a report by real estate consultancy Crosspoint Real Estate. 

Six office buildings sold, another five buildings with occupancy permits, nearly 45,000 sqm of offices leased, the development of the food & beverage segment and the strengthening of the diverse offer of Libero Katowice and Galeria Młociny - these are the developer's key commercial sector successes in 2022.

Property group Globalworth says it has delivered office fit-out services for 50 tenants in 12 buildings based in Bucharest that totalled 250,000 sqm. 

Skanska has opened the 27,000 sqm first phase of the H2Offices complex on Budapest's Váci Road office corridor. Construction of the second phase may start in H2 2023, with the third and final to be handed over in 2026 or 2027.

The second half of 2022 has brought 33,000 sqm of office space to the Brno office stock up to the final of 664,400 sqm. There were five new office buildings that were completed and six more are under construction now. At this moment, Ostrava has only one project under construction with the completion scheduled for 2023, says the Regional Research Forum in its latest report on H2 2022.

While around 100,000 sqm of new office space is expected in Bucharest this year, no new project is slated for delivery in 2024 which would move the city into a landlord’s office market, according to Colliers. 

A syndicate of four banks granted HB Reavis a loan for refinancing the Varso Place project, a mixed-use scheme in central Warsaw. The total amount of €475 million makes it the largest non-portfolio loan in the history of the commercial real estate market in Poland and one of the biggest in Central and Eastern Europe. The last stage of Varso Place, Varso Tower, was delivered in 2022.