Cushman & Wakefield has been selected to act as property manager for the Grójecka Offices building currently under construction in Warsaw’s Ochota district. The new office building located at 206 Grójecka street will comprise 7 400 sqm of Class A office space and it will be completed in Q2 2017.

Poland remains the powerhouse of Central and Eastern Europe attracting close to half the capital invested in the region over 2016 as activity grew 5% over the year to €5.2 billion. According to Cushman & Wakefield, with the uncertainty around upcoming elections in major European countries and the ongoing Brexit challenges, Poland and the CEE region will maintain their strong position as a focus for any pan-European investment strategy.

Poland’s total industrial and logistics stock surpassed the 11 million sqm mark at year-end 2016. Leasing activity remained strong for another consecutive year, leading to record high take-up, with more than 3 million sqm being transacted. The largest leasing volumes were recorded in Warsaw’s suburbs and Upper Silesia, and – of the smaller markets – in Szczecin and Bydgoszcz-Toruń. Cushman & Wakefield presented is yearly review on Poland’s industrial market.

Poland’s total retail stock stood at nearly 14 million sqm at year-end 2016. Shopping centres continue to dominate the market, accounting for 73% of the country’s stock, followed by retail warehouses (18%), retail parks (8%) and outlet centres (1%). Last year’s new supply totalled 460,600 sqm, of which more than three-fourths were delivered across shopping centres. Twenty two new retail schemes were opened in 2016: 15 shopping centres, the largest being Posnania in Poznań (99,000 sqm) and Galeria Metropolia in Gdańsk (34,000 sqm), two retail parks and five standalone retail warehouses. Extensions and redevelopments of 13 existing schemes provided 74,000 sqm of leasable space, making up 16% of the total annual supply. Cushman & Wakefield presented its latest report on Poland’s retail market.

Total commercial real estate investment across CEE (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia) reached €4.4bn in Q4 2016, a 27% increase on Q4 2015. This took full year volumes for 2016 to just over €11bn, an 11% increase on 2015 (€9.9bn), bucking the wider trend across Europe and on the continent where volumes shrank year-on-year. Cushman & Wakefield Czech Republic predicts a further growth of the region. 

Martin Hudak has been promoted to the position of Head of Industrial Agency at Cushman & Wakefield in Slovakia.

In 2016, total office stock in Poland’s eight key regional cities (Krakow, Wrocław, Tricity, Katowice, Poznań, Łódź, Szczecin and Lublin) rose to nearly 4 million sqm. Krakow, Wrocław and Tricity remain the largest regional office hubs. Office take-up hit nearly 590,000 sqm, which represented a 50% rise on the average for the years 2011–2015. Cushman & Wakefield presented an overview of the Polish regional office market for 2016 in its latest report.

In 2016, office supply in Warsaw rose by 65% on the annual average for the period 2011–2015. The largest number of new office buildings was delivered in the City Core and the Fringe. Take-up came predominantly from the business services sector. Cushman & Wakefield presented an overview of the Warsaw office market in 2016 in its latest report.

With effect from this January, Cushman & Wakefield is the manager of both shopping centres in Mladá Boleslav. Both Olympia Mladá Boleslav, which Cushman & Wakefield has been managing since 2015, and Bondy shopping centre are now under the management of one company. CPI Property Group owns both centres.

AEW has sold the Smíchov Gate office building in Prague 5 after almost ten years of ownership on behalf of one of the funds managed by AEW. The new owner is Redside, manager of real estate open-ended investment fund NOVA Real Estate (SICAV). Cushman & Wakefield facilitated the sale of the property.