P3 Logistic Parks has signed an exclusive agreement to partner with Virtuplex, Europe’s largest B2B virtual reality laboratory, to explore the application of VR technology in the logistics warehouse space.

Warburg-HIH Invest Real Estate is about to acquire the River Garden 1 in Prague via a share deal. The office building with its gross lettable area of 19,000 square metres and another 1,300 square metres of patio space is earmarked for the individual fund of a German investor. In addition to flexible office accommodation on six floors, the property from 2012 offers around 2,200 square metres of retail area.

CA Immo has begun the construction of two premium office properties in the River City Prague complex, which is located in Prague’s Karlín district. Mississippi House and Missouri Park will complete the office complex, which currently includes three Class A- office buildings (Amazon Court, Nile House and Danube House).

Colliers International announced that Kevin Turpin has been appointed as the new Regional Director of Research for Central and Eastern Europe. He starts his new position on 1 October and will be based in Prague.

Nova Real Estate fund, managed by the fund management company Redside, has completed the acquisition of the home improvement supplies store  OBI in Frýdek Místek, from the seller, development company PTO. OBI is a German multinational retailing company founded in 1970. With more than 650 retail stores, OBI is the largest DIY retailer in Europe, and the third-largest in the world. This is the second property with OBI as a tenant in the Fund’s portfolio in the Czech Republic.

The Czech Republic has one of the longest and most complicated building procedures in the world and is ranked 156 out of 190 countries observed by The World Bank. Fortunately for real estate developers, the situation is slowly changing. Erwin Hanslik MRICS, Partner and CEE Head of Real Estate at Taylor Wessing talked to us about the legal and regulatory challenges investors and developers need to face in the Czech Republic.

Českomoravská Nemovitosti has acquired the BLOX office building in Prague's Dejvice district for more than €77 million (CZK 2 billion). The building's primary tenant is Amazon.  The acquisition was financed by ČSOB.

BNP Paribas Real Estate has appointed Karel Bor as the new Managing Director in the Czech Republic. Karel Bor brings with him over 20 years of professional experience within the real estate industry including brokerage, advisory and property development.  

The office space market in Prague is currently doing very well and has a great potential for further development. Its excellent condition is illustrated by several parameters that Cushman & Wakefield has been monitoring on a long-term basis and whose correct interpretation in relation to the current results is presented here. These indicators are primarily the highly positive trend in the office demand (the occupied office space increased by 47,000 sqm), vacancy rate remaining at its record-breaking low (with just 4.6% of stock being vacant) and the highest number of newly opened buildings in the last five years (17 buildings including 11 newly built ones).

According to the latest RICS Commercial Property Monitor, CEE countries – most notably the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania – are still global leaders in occupier and investment sentiment. The Central European region’s most mature market, Austria is on a different path, however, with respondents reporting a broadly flat outlook.