pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank provided an investment facility of €41.4 million to companies owned by a professional private real estate investor and managed by development and investment company Amesbury s.r.o. The funds will be used to refinance the Zlicin and Chrastany business parks near Prague. Thereby pbb extended the maturity of its financing by another five years. The transaction closed in December 2017.

P3 has acquired a second logistics park near Lovosice, in the Ústí region of the Czech Republic, from HB Reavis. The new park, to be known as P3 Lovosice Cargo, comprises a single 43,500 sqm warehouse which is fully let to a long-term occupier and houses all of its business operations, including offices. P3 Lovosice Cargo has a direct rail link to the nearby international rail freight container terminal. Its accessibility is further enhanced by connections to Exits 45 and 48 on the recently opened D8 motorway.

Czech online retailer alza.cz has opened a new self-service concept store at Prague’s Flora metro station. The retailer has branded the new concept ‘the store of the future’. The store, which is able to serve 1,000 costumers daily, operates with no staff and offers 24-hour accessibility.

CTPark Bor has been expanded by a multi-functional service centre. The aim of this centre is not only to provide an office space for the tenants of CTPark Bor, but also to be attentive to their personal needs. The building includes a restaurant, a mini market and a medical professional. CTP is also drafting plans for a space with games and an area for athletic activity.

YIT has sold housing projects in Prague, the Czech Republic and in Bratislava, Slovakia to YCE Housing I fund. The value of the projects is approximately €50 million, and the sales are recorded in the last quarter of the year.

Robert Pitt has joined CTP Invest as the group COO, effective as of December 1st, 2017. Mr. Pitt will assist in setting up processes to efficiently help structure how the company operates, thus preparing CTP for the further growth needed to achieve its ambitious goals. His main focus will be HR, IT, Legal, Controlling and Construction/Design/Permitting/Procurement.

Czech online retail giant Alza has leased a 22,000 sqm warehouse at P3 Prague D8 park as increasing sales volumes put pressure on its existing logistics centres around Prague in the Holešovice District and at P3 Prague Horní Počernice park. Alza will move into the specially adapted facility – which will feature a mezzanine storage system that has the capacity to almost quadruple the total floorspace – in January (2018). Both of Alza's existing logistics centres are equipped with technology to ensure that the company can meet its delivery time promises – particularly useful during the hectic pre-Christmas season.

Representatives of the BMW Group, the Czech government and the Karlovy Vary region announced construction of a new proving ground. The roughly 500-hectare property will be developed in Sokolov in the Karlovy Vary region, close to the German border town of Waldsassen and about two-and-a-half hours’ drive from the BMW Group’s main development site, the Research and Development Centre (FIZ), in Munich. The new BMW Group proving ground, which will create several hundred jobs, is slated to go into operation early in the next decade. Total investment will be in the three-digit million-euro range.

A Slovak private equity group has disposed of a 6,800 sqm hypermarket in Liptovský Mikuláš with an exceptionally long lease with Tesco to a Czech private investor, Cushman & Wakefield announced on Twitter.

A huge increase in urban logistics property space is required across key centers in Europe in the next few years to meet the exponential growth of e-commerce and the resultant need for last mile delivery in cities, according to a new research report from Cushman & Wakefield.