Labour shortage and rising costs in construction are problems developers in CEE have had to learn to live with over the past years. Dr. Zoltán Nádasdy MRICS, Partner, Head of CEE Real Estate Investments Group at Noerr talked to Property Forum about the legal challenges investors and developers face on the Hungarian, Romanian and Polish markets.

Companies Iulius and Atterbury Europe have opened the Iulius Town mixed-use project in Timișoara, the largest investment in the region, adding up to a total of €442 million. Iulius Town entailed integrating Iulius Mall Timișoara into an extensive urban regeneration project, completing it with retail, office and entertainment uses.

CTP announced that it will complete CTPark Bor in the next five years, creating the largest industrial park in the Czech Republic with an area of ​​600,000 sqm.

Immofinanz is driving the steady growth of its Stop Shop retail park brand, as previously announced, with a next step that includes the expansion of the portfolio to 90 locations. The most recent acquisitions include six fully rented retail parks in Slovenia and Poland with roughly 54,000 sqm of rentable space. The annual rental income based on invoiced rents amounts to approximately €6.6 million, which represents a gross return of 8.6%.

Timpuri Noi Square, Vastint Romania’s first project, reaches an occupancy rate of 90% within the 3 buildings situated in Bucharest, leasing more than 47.000 sqm, and welcomes since last year tenants like Bolt (formerly Taxify), Allergan, Exiger and Streamwide, developing a community of more than 3,000 employees.

The first company to lease premises at the new Panattoni Park Košice Airport was GGT, the largest distributor of tobacco products in Slovakia. They will move in later 2019. Panattoni Europe unveiled information about the first leaseholder at the ceremony to commence construction of the new, almost 8-hectare industrial park with modern manufacturing and warehousing facilities. Ideally located not far from the Košice Airport and with direct access to the D1 highway, this industrial park is the first development project of Panattoni Europe in Slovakia.

Bulgaria marks the seventh country in which CTP opens operations, stretching the company's portfolio from the German border to the Black Sea.

Building H, the eighth element of TriGranit’s Bonarka for Business (B4B), one of the most popular office complexes in Kraków, has been opened. The eight-storey, Class A office building with 9,855 sqm GLA already has a 45% occupancy rate, while the occupancy of Building F has recently reached 100%. So far in 2019, there have been more than 11,000 sqm new leases or lease extensions in the Bonarka office complex. TriGranit is preparing the delivery of two further office projects in the B4B complex, Building I and Building J, each with 10,000 sqm GLA.

Real estate developer Hagag Development, part of Hagag Group Israel, breaks ground on its largest residential project to be developed in Romania: H Pipera Lake. Out of the total number of 390 apartments to be delivered in the first phase, 45% have already been sold.

The total modern retail stock in Romania, which includes both retail parks and shopping centres, has reached approximately 3.7 million sqm in the first half of 2019 and around 130,600 sqm are expected to be brought on the market by the end of the year, according to CBRE's latest research report.