Knight Frank has been appointed sole agent of the Galeria Ostrowiec shopping mall. Experts from the company’s Retail Agency will diversify the offer of the shopping mall, owned by First Property Group.

Delta Holding subsidiary Delta Real Estate, in cooperation with AP investments, has finalised the acquisition of a shopping mall in Varna, Bulgaria. The project is worth €120 million and it will be completed in May 2018.

Savills has been appointed as an exclusive agent responsible for the recommercialisation of part of Centrum Krakowska 61 retail park in Warsaw. The complex will soon undergo a substantial refurbishment, including refurbishment of one of the buildings which comprises 11,800 sqm.

GTC’s Polish flagship retail project was officially granted a final occupancy permit. Galeria Północna, comprising 64,800 sqm of leasable space, is the first major modern shopping and entertainment centre located in Warsaw’s Białołęka district. The investment was completed within 25 months after obtaining the construction permit.

pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank provided an investment facility of €63 million to CBRE Property Fund Central and Eastern Europe (CBRE PFCEE), an investment fund focusing on retail assets in Poland and Slovakia, managed by CBRE Global Investors. CBRE PFCEE will use the proceeds for the refinancing of the shopping centre “Wars Sawa Junior” in Warsaw. The transaction closed in August 2017. pbb acted as arranger and sole lender under the facility. 

During the first half of 2017 demand and supply of modern retail space in Bulgaria have been aligning with each other, according to a new research by Colliers International. During the period, modern shopping centers retail space supply balanced with demand by keeping its previous levels of 791,760 sqm in the country and 406,660 sqm in Sofia. Together with this for a few periods now, retail space absorption has been steadily going up. During the last half-year period, it recorded an 11% increase, providing for demand - supply balance. 

AFI Brasov has recently obtained the construction permit and will be the third shopping center AFI Romania is developing in Romania. The shopping center will offer a total gross leasable area of 45,000 sqm, 80% of which is already leased, that will be combined with two additional Class A office towers totalling 25,000 sqm GLA. The overall investment for the mall and first office building is estimated to be over €120 million. The entire project is developed to be LEED Gold certified as a green building.   

In the first half of 2017, there were only approximately 30,000 sqm of retail space delivered to the market in Poland, half of which are extensions. The total stock of modern retail space at the end of June 2017 reached about 11,2 million sqm. Supply for 2017 is estimated at a similar level compared to the previous year (almost 400,000 sqm), according to the latest report by Colliers International.

The AFI Ploiesti shopping center, owned by AFI Europe Romania, received the LEED Gold Certification. AFI Ploiesti thus becomes the only building in town to achieve the LEED Certification.

During H1 2017, the retail stock in Poland grew by 63,100 sqm. Shopping centres accounted for 16,600 sqm, retail parks for 21,500 sqm and standalone projects for 25,000 sqm. Recent market openings include standalone store Agata Meble (18,000 sqm) in Rzeszów, retail park Kalinka (9,700 sqm) in Kalisz as well as Tarasy Grabiszyńskie centre (8,500 sqm) in Wrocław. JLL summarised H1 2017 on the retail market in Poland.