Arena Mall shopping centre in Bacau, a reference for the retail market in the Moldova region, will enter into a comprehensive extension and modernization process that will result in a 60% increase of its leasable area and in the construction of a multi-storey car park.

Cushman & Wakefield has been appointed property manager of Sagittarius Business House, an office building in Wrocław. The owner of the facility is Warburg-HIH Invest Real Estate.

Cushman & Wakefield has signed a framework management agreement for 14 office buildings owned by the Skanska Group. The largest facilities include High Five A&B in Krakow (36,700 sqm) and Brama Miasta B in Łódź (27,800 sqm).

Despite geopolitical uncertainty and a slowing in the economic cycle, investment in the global property market has seen a significant rise of 18% year-on-year to a new record high of $1.8 trillion (2017: $1.5 trillion), according to the report of Cushman & Wakefield, which examines global commercial real estate investment activity, assessing cities by their success at attracting capital.

Companies in Bucharest that operate in modern office buildings have monthly occupancy costs ranging between €175 and €500 per employee, according to an analysis by Cushman & Wakefield Echinox.

WeWork will open its latest location at Warsaw’s Europejski scheme. Europejski, formerly known as the Europejski Hotel, is a mixed-use building offering Class A+ office and retail space. It is also home to the Raffles Europejski Warsaw hotel.

Land in Bucharest continued to attract the interest of real estate developers this year, considering that in the first nine months of 2018, lots with a cumulated surface of over 60 hectares on which around 8,000 dwellings, 180,000 square meters of offices as well as commercial spaces can be developed, according to an analysis of Cushman & Wakefield Echinox.

In Central and Eastern Europe, hotel owners are experiencing record months in terms of average daily rates which was the primary driver of the double-digit RevPAR (Revenue per available room) growth recorded by central European cities in 2017. The growing trend was also seen in the first half of this year (H1 2018). The only exception was Warsaw where RevPAR dropped slightly due to declining occupancy, yet the prices of rooms increased as in other capitals. The higher room rates translated to notable gains in hotels’ profitability which brought significant interests from investors. The lack of hotel properties available for sale and shortage of development sites in prime locations is turning attention to conversions of existing buildings into hotels. As the demand continues to grow and the development pipeline remains limited in most markets (except for Warsaw and Vienna), profitability is expected to stay strong also in the coming years.

Cushman & Wakefield has become the manager of three buildings of TRIUVA, a PATRIZIA company, including the Five office centre in Smíchov, Wenceslas Square 9 and Lindner Hotel Prague, as well as the new acquisitions of funds managed by Amundi Immobilier Paris and Amundi Czech Republic - Praha City Center in Prague 1 and the Polygon House in Pankrác.

The office stock in the major regional cities of Romania - Cluj-Napoca, Timisoara, Iasi and Brasov – has doubled over the past five years and will continue to grow at an accelerated pace, being expected to exceed the 1 million sqm threshold in 2019, according to the Cushman & Wakefield Echinox Office Market Regional Cities study.