ARTICLES LABELLED WITH TAG Cushman&Wakefield

Empik in Cepelia, Decathlon City in the International Business Center, Bulgari, Luca, Carhartt and Le Szapo. Do the leases signed in Warsaw in recent months herald a high-street revival in Warsaw and beyond? High shopping centre density rates and shrinking retail availability bode well for it. In addition, Cushman & Wakefield notes that the Polish retail market is now going through a very interesting period of growth, with many tenants increasingly focusing on location diversification as new retail concepts and formats are emerging. This means that there is a real chance of a revival of high-street retail.

Prime Logistics Wrocław and logistics service provider LX Pantos have signed a lease for 100,000 sqm. The transaction saw LX Pantos renegotiate its contract and expand to a new building to consolidate its warehouse space in a single location. This marks the largest warehouse deal in Poland this year. LX Pantos was advised by Cushman & Wakefield. CBRE advised the owner of Prime Logistics Wrocław, Brookfield Properties.

According to the latest report from Cushman & Wakefield, occupier demand was notably weaker on the Polish industrial market in the first quarter of 2024. However, despite a double-digit decline in take-up, Poland was one of the most active leasing markets in Europe. Development activity also stabilised, but this year’s new supply is forecast to be the fourth highest in the history of the Polish industrial market.

Cushman & Wakefield has signed an exclusive affiliate agreement with CBS International to deliver commercial property services in Austria. The affiliate agreement builds upon an existing successful relationship between the two firms, with CBS International having been Cushman & Wakefield’s affiliate in Serbia and Montenegro since 2018 and Croatia since 2019.

New office deliveries in regional cities totaled 83,000 sqm in 2023 and the total leasable area has climbed close to 1.1 million sqm, according to a Cushman & Wakefield report. Offices in regional cities of the likes of Cluj-Napoca, Timișoara and Brașov represent around 30% of the corresponding total in Bucharest.

The Polish shopping centre market is now considered mature as many retail malls were built in the 1990s and 2000s, that is before the technological boom in energy efficiency and during a period of significantly lower awareness of the issue. A wave of upgrades is coming, but they will not happen overnight due to high levels of refurbishment expenditure required. In the face of rising challenges of energy and heat consumption, experts from Cushman & Wakefield managing a large and highly diverse portfolio of shopping centres and retail parks provide valuable insight into the results of their frequently innovative and low-cost measures.

In 2023, Central Europe’s commercial real estate market faced a notable decline in investment volumes. Dropping by 55% year on year, the region’s total investment volume accounted for €5.02 billion. Of the six countries surveyed by Cushman & Wakefield, Poland experienced the most significant downturn of 68%, with its share of the total CEE volume also dropping. The highest proportion of the capital went into the office sector, which also recorded the sharpest outward movement in terms of yields. Local and regional investors accounted for two-thirds of the investment transaction volumes, a significant increase from the previous years. Despite challenges, the market demonstrates resilience, particularly in the logistics and residential sectors, spotlighting areas of growth potential.

Experts of Cushman & Wakefield expect transactional activity on the Polish hotel market to pick up in 2024 as key performance indicators continue to improve and the pressure on investors to allocate capital builds up. Although 2023’s total investment volume on the Polish market was below that of 2019, it reached nearly €83 million - an 82% increase year-on-year. Warsaw, Vilnius and Edinburg are the only main European hotel markets that reported year-on-year growth in occupancy levels last year. At the same time, Warsaw came third for ADR growth (EUR) in 2023, with an increase of 20.1% year-on-year. 

According to the latest report from Cushman & Wakefield, 2023 saw the second-highest supply level and the third-highest take-up figure in the history of the Polish industrial market. The sector continues to enjoy strong fundamentals supporting its steady growth despite the rapidly changing macroeconomic environment.

The development pipeline of logistics centres is still powerful around Budapest but some of the players seek other opportunities near regional industrial cities. However, landlords need to adapt to market changes while adjusting their rental conditions. Property Forum asked Gábor Halász-Csatári, Head of Industrial & Logistics Agency at Cushman & Wakefield about the latest trends in meeting demands and the pivotal role of fulfilment services in Hungary.