Prologis announced full-year 2016 activity for its business in Central and Eastern Europe. The company leased 1.8 million sqms in the region. New lease agreements accounted for 700,000 sqm and lease renewals for 900,000 sqm, with the balance short-term agreements. The CEE portfolio occupancy rate was a record 96.4 percent. 

Futureal Group handed over the Skypark office building as the latest member of the Corvin Promenade. The 25,000 sqm business center boasts the latest technology since it is planned to meet the needs of technology and R&D. 

The Romanian retail market continued to expand in 2016 with total stock reaching 1.22 million sqm in Bucharest and 2.3 million sqm in regional cities. For 2017 no major retail project is scheduled for completion in the capital, while 130,000 sqm are expected to be delivered in regional cities. DTZ Echinox Romania published its retail reports for 2016.

Israeli real estate developer AFI Europe plans to invest €200 million euro in the construction of a residential and shopping complex in Belgarde, the Serbian capital’s mayor Siniša Mali announced. 

In most Central and Eastern European countries the commercial property market is heavily concentrated in the capital city and modern offices in secondary or tertiary cities are virtually non-existent. Luckily, that is not the case in the Czech Republic, where there are cities outside of Prague, most notably Brno, that offer attractive opportunities for international companies. Czech-based developer CTP invited us for the opening ceremony of the new Courtyard by Marriott hotel and showed us the city’s property market.

Deutsche Hospitality’s first hotel CEE hotel is set to open in by 2019. IntercityHotel Budapest will be located in a newly constructed building in forint of the City’s Eastern Railway Station (Keleti pályaudvar). It will have 300 rooms, a restaurant, a bar, a conference area and an underground car park with 200 spaces. 

Goodman is now constructing a second modern warehouse building totalling 36,700 sqm in Pomeranian Logistics Centre. The company’s flagship development in Poland has already secured five new pre-lease agreements.

Panattoni Europe has completed a manufacturing and warehousing building for STS Acoustics. The facility features close to 9,000 sqm and was built at the Międzyrzecz Industrial Park, in the Lubuskie voivodeship. The lease was signed for 12 years.

Nearly 100,000 sqm of new office space was delivered to the Budapest market in 2016, the highest figure since 2010. Meanwhile, demand picked up in the last quarter of the year with a large share of the total leasing volume made up of pre-leases and new transactions. At the same time, the office vacancy rate has returned to its downward trajectory, reaching 9.5%, the lowest rate on record.

Skanska invests €38 million in the first phase of Campus 6, an office complex in Bucharest, Romania. The first phase will offer a total leasable area of about 22,000 square meters on 11 stories above ground and two levels of underground parking.