Stefan de Goeij is joining the Cushman & Wakefield ESG team as a Partner. The sustainability and property management professional will lead the CEE team as Head of Sustainability & ESG as of July 2023.

Urbanity Campus Tachov, located west of Plzeň, became the first industrial complex in the Czech Republic to receive an international BREEAM Communities certification. It has now completed the three-year certification process with the final rating of “Excellent”. The construction of the second phase of the project is now launching, which will offer 55,000 sqm of leasable space.

Around 650,000 sqm of industrial and logistics spaces are under development in Romania, which once completed will be added to the stock of 6.3 million sqm that was operational at the end of 2022, according to a Colliers report.

The demand for office development or refurbishment projects remains high as more companies are looking for quality workspaces, according to CBRE data.

Real estate decision-making and people-centric strategies are becoming more integrated, according to CBRE’s 2023 European Occupier Survey. For the first time, CBRE carried out the same survey for global companies having an operation in CEE to point out major differences in workplace culture across the various geographies.

Hungarian property developer and investor Indotek Group currently owns real estate in Hungary and eight foreign countries and is actively screening opportunities in five others. The portfolio consists of office, retail, hotel and industrial properties. Property Forum asked Krisztián Hornok, Managing Director of International Transactions and Asset Management about the reasons for the large-scale expansion and ways of handling risks in this region.

The relocation of production facilities from far-away locations, such as Asia, is generating additional demand for industrial and logistics projects in CEE-based markets, with Romania being among the biggest beneficiaries, according to a Cushman & Wakefield report. 

Alexandros Diamantis, Managing Director of Medcity spoke with Property Forum about the company’s investments in Romania that reached €30 million to date and the new cities that have potential for new healthcare real estate developments.

As it was announced in April, JLL will soon transfer most of its existing business lines to iO Partners in Romania, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. US-based real estate private equity fund manager Michael Stanton, Founder of iO Partners, talked to Property Forum about the details of the deal and shared the new company’s plans for the future.

Although anti-pandemic measures were still lingering on the Czech retail market at the beginning of last year, an early return to normal was expected. However, the war in Ukraine has fundamentally influenced further economic development, especially in the countries of Central Europe, including the Czech Republic. The rapid rise in prices (inflation increased by 15.1% year-on-year) and energy expenses were met by a further decline in already weakened customer confidence. How did this affect shopping centres in the Czech Republic? And what is the current sentiment on the market not only among customers but also the retailers themselves? CBRE tried to answer these questions in its annual Shopping Centre Index analysis, which is complemented by two current surveys focused on the development of customer behaviour and expectations on the part of retailers.