JLL has appointed David Vais as head of its Industrial Agency in the Czech Republic. Vais joins JLL from CTP Invest, where he worked for over 4 years as Senior Business Development Manager for the Czech and Slovak Republics.

Prologis announced two appointments at its Central and Eastern European project management operations. The appointments are designed to enhance the company’s capabilities for developing complex projects within a specified budget and time frame.

PNK Group, an international industrial real estate developer from Russia, entered the European market with the opening of its new industrial park - PNK Park Sereď in the Western Slovak region. The park comprises a 45,000 square meters of Class A industrial space across two completed facilities.

Prologis has begun construction of a new 10,000 square meter speculative facility at Prologis Park Budapest-Harbor in Hungary. Completion is scheduled for the first quarter of 2019, just six months after the start of the development.

Accolade Group will invest €8.6 million in the construction of a new industrial park near Zdice, right at exit 28 from the D5 motorway from Prague to Plzeň. The project will offer 12,100 sqm of leasable space and might start operating by 2020 or earlier.

The Polish industrial market set three records in H1 2018, according to Cushman & Wakefield. The leasing volume hit 2,100,000 sqm – the highest in the first six months of a year, the vacancy rate fell to an all-time low of 4% (573,000 sqm) and the volume of warehouse space under construction set a new high of 2,250,000 sqm across 66 projects.

Local real estate developer Global Vision, controlled by Romanian investor Sorin Preda, has started a €200 million industrial development project on a 100 ha land it acquired last year near Constanta’s port.

At the end of H1 2018, there was more than 2.13 million sqm of warehouse and industrial space under construction across Poland with Central Poland accounting for more than one-fourth of the development pipeline, according to Cresa. Despite the healthy supply, the vacancy rate will remain below 5% this year and is likely to edge down to approximately 4% next year on account of a base effect and the expected robust occupier demand.

In H1 2018, demand on Poland’s industrial market was 2 million sqm - this is the best ever result recorded in the market’s history. In addition, industrial stock in Poland has now exceeded 14 million sqm, according to JLL.

Prologis has begun construction of a new 38,620 square meter facility at its fast-expanding Prologis Park Prague-Airport.