Around 135,000 sqm of modern retail space was added to Poland’s total stock in Q2 2024, with new supply comprising both new openings and extensions, while the end of H1 2024 the development pipeline amounted to around 335,000 sqm, according to a report by BNP Paribas Real Estate.
New openings were dominated by retail parks while some of the existing shopping centres are being demolished and replaced by office, residential, industrial or hotel projects.
“Shopping centres will not vanish, but will experience an intensification of a range of processes, from recommercializations, refurbishments and upgrades through to extensions, redevelopments and repurposing or demolition to reclaim land for new projects,” says Fabrice Paumelle, Head of Retail, BNP Paribas Real Estate Poland.
During Q2, there were nine new completions, three extensions and three redevelopments.
Only one new shopping centre opened in the second quarter of 2024: Galeria Starówka in Leszno.
Extensions included Dekada in Grójec and the Nowa Górna retail park in Łódź, which saw 5,000 sqm and 3,000 sqm added respectively. In addition, three buildings vacated by Tesco were redeveloped and replaced by two retail parks in Bytom and one in Piła.
New retail openings were once again dominated by retail parks which were delivered in Jastrzębie-Zdrój, Olsztyn, Świebodzin, Tychy, Zawiercie and Zgorzelec. The second quarter of 2024 also saw three transactions with four retail parks changing hands: two in the Warsaw region (in Łubna and Grodzisk Mazowiecki) and the other two in Kłodzko and Kępno.
BNP Paribas’ experts suggested that the market will be significantly influenced by the announced liberalization of Sunday shopping regulations. The bill provides for two shopping Sundays each month.
“Recent years have seen a huge expansion of discounters which have built up a loyal customer base thanks to aggressive marketing and pricing strategies and long opening hours. The existing Sunday trading ban legislation contains many arbitrary exemptions which may open the door to misuse,” say the agency’s experts.
The Sunday trading ban was enacted in 2018 and aimed to support local stores. However, the number of stores fell from nearly 340,000 at the end of 2018 to just under 326,000 at the end of 2022, according to data from Statistics Poland (GUS).
