The Port7 office project by Skanska has received the occupancy permit. Port7 offers 35,800 sqm of premium office and retail space in three buildings, 50 percent of which are leased now. Skanska is now shifting its focus to finishing the nearly 2-hectare public park and the new riverside, which is expected to become the new centre of Prague Holešovice. For better access to the entire area, the developer has built an extension of the railway underpass which directly connects the project with the subway, train, and tram station of Nádraží Holešovice.

Real estate investments have proven their qualities, especially in times of crisis and uncertainties. Therefore, they will remain an attractive investment possibility, says Jan Rydl, Country Manager Czech Republic at Arnold Investments. He talked to Property Forum about investment market trends.

CTP has completed two industrial lettings with 12,000 sqm of space at CTP Park Cerhovice. Two speculatively developed sustainable warehouse spaces have been leased to French global automotive supplier Valeo Vymeniky Tepla s.r.o and leading European logistics operator Raben Logistics Czech s.r.o. CTP plans to develop a further 58,000 sqm in this industrial park by the end of 2024, the company announced.

In the CEE region, Prague placed second in terms of the price of fitting out an office. With €1,159 being the average cost per square metre in Prague, it is just over half of what is standard in top cities in Germany or the UK, where costs often exceed €2,000. Compared with the last year, the prices have grown all over Europe due to inflation and other factors. The 10% increase in Prague means that office occupiers need to carefully consider their office usage and space needs when redesigning their offices. Sustainability and DE&I are also increasingly affecting fit-out requirements, reports Cushman & Wakefield in their latest analysis.

At the beginning of the pandemic, it seemed that many coworking centres or serviced offices could not survive the measures implemented under the Covid-19 pandemic. Shared workspaces, whose philosophy is based on meeting, personal communication, and collaboration, were hit hard by governmental restrictions. But a December analysis by JLL shows promising results; with the retreat of anti-pandemic measures, most coworking and serviced office operators have already felt a new wave of interest, and 2022 has confirmed this trend.

Českomoravská nemovitostní (ČMN), which is half owner of the Churchill Square office complex in Prague, plans to acquire the rest of the property. It plans to buy the property in two transactions, Seznamzpravy.cz reports.

Česká spořitelna has started to build affordable apartments with low rents for employees that cities lack. The first such apartment buildings with 254 flats are already taking shape in Prague 9, built by a subsidiary of the bank DBČS with the developer Finep for CZK 1 billion (€42.7 million). The bank plans to build a total of 1,000 flats by 2026. The bank also wants to cooperate with the Czech government to finance more flats through EU funds and loans from the European Investment Bank, DBČS subsidiary CEO Marek Blaha told the press.

Despite significantly lower prices than in the capital, markets for offices in Brno and Ostrava are struggling with rising vacancies. Other regional markets, however, now offer opportunities for developers, investors or serviced office providers, thanks to the potential of the Hub & Spoke concept. The latter centres around a strategy where companies reduce the size of the main office and then supplement it with smaller spaces in different locations. Alongside that, there is the Flex & Core office space usage concept, which combines a smaller main office with a membership of one or more co-working centres. These options to curb office vacancies are mentioned in a recent survey by Colliers.

CTP acquired an industrial complex from Bluehouse Capital earlier this year on a plot of land with a total area of 330,000 sqm in the city district of Ostrava - Hrušov. In addition to the existing first phase of 18,000 sqm, which already has three tenants, the developer plans to build another 76,000 sqm of industrial/logistics space. The warehouse will be built in the revitalized area of the former chemical plants with a total area of 94,000 sqm and will become the largest in the Czech CTP portfolio.

In 1.5 years, 275 modular bathrooms have been installed in YIT apartments in the Czech Republic. The developer is expanding the use of prefabrication to other building elements. By incorporating this technology, the company plans to not only improve the quality of its residential projects but also speed up their implementation. At the same time, it expects to have less demand for labour, which is in short supply. In addition to bathrooms, the developer is now also using modular manufacturing for structural elements. The Czech branch of YIT is following in the footsteps of its parent company in Finland, which has been building in this way since the 1970s, YIT told the press.