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.

Property developer Speedwell says it will be installing photovoltaic panels on two of its office projects in Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca in a bid to make its building more sustainable. 

Lease transactions in the Bratislava office market in the fourth quarter of 2022 reached a total area of 54,532 sqm, which represents around a 41% increase in leasing activity compared to the previous quarter, the Bratislava Research Forum reports.

The Roztyly Plaza office building in Prague 11 has progressed to the above-ground construction phase. Completion is planned for 2024, yet more than half of the offices are already leased, developer Passerinvest announced.

Romanian developer Pedro Construct has completed a new office building spanning 9,500 sqm in Bucharest following an investment of around €18 million.  

A 44% higher demand for offices in Prague was recorded year-on-year in Q4 2022. Renegotiations accounted for 58%, the remaining transactions included new leases, expansions, and subleases. By 2025, an additional 400,000 sqm of new office space, currently in different stages of preparation, is due to come online in Prague, says JLL.

New demand in Bucharest's office market (new leases, pre-leases and relocations from non-competitive stock) had a share of 57% or 185,000 sqm of the total office take-up in 2022. Demand itself was up 10% year-on-year, according to a study by real estate consultancy Cushman & Wakefield Echinox. 

The Warsaw office market saw a shrinking volume of space under construction and increasing pressure on rents in 2022. However, according to the latest report by Cushman & Wakefield, the capital's market could see a significant tenant recovery as contracts signed in the record period of 2018-2019 come up for renewal.

The office vacancy rate in Budapest increased to 11.3%, representing a 0.3 pps increase quarter-on-quarter and a 2.1 pps increase year-on-year. Net absorption has remained positive by the end of the fourth quarter, amounting to 53,480 sqm and reaching 158,510 sqm year-to-date, the Budapest Research Forum (BRF) reports.

Face2Face Business Campus, an office complex in Katowice with a combined area of close to 50,000 sqm, has a new property manager. Its owner, a joint venture of the Czech fund INVESTIKA realitní fond and Luxembourg-based private equity investor Bud Holdings, has instructed Savills to provide property management for the complex.