The maturity of the industrial real estate sector in Poland’s five largest markets does not necessarily mean limited investment opportunities for developers and tenants. The importance of smaller markets has been growing recently in Poland, which gives the possibility to expand into locations that were previously out of developers’ and tenants’ interests, according to JLL.

A new record level of modern industrial, office and retail projects is expected to be delivered in 2020, as developers announced projects of over 1.2 million square meters, according to the latest Bucharest City Report published by JLL.

The annual leasing volume on Poland’s industrial market reached 3.75 million sqm in 2019. The market grew by a record-breaking 2.8 million sqm while 1.9 million sqm of space is under construction. JLL summarised the industrial market in Poland for 2019.

According to JLL, CEE's real estate investment volume for 2019 hit €14.0 billion. Poland registered over 55% of this total (€7.7 billion) and was followed by the Czech Republic (€3.1 billion), Hungary (€1.7 billion), Slovakia (approx. €770 million), and Romania (approx. €683 million).

Last year saw excellent results in the office sector in Poland. Demand was a record breaking 1.6 million sqm. Total stock exceeded 11 million sqm with regional markets accounting for 5.6 million sqm and outperforming Warsaw for the first time. JLL summarised the situation on the Polish office market at the end of 2019.

The Neopark office complex, one of the flagship investments of Yareal Polska, is now fully leased, with companies such as Play, Inpost, New Work, Olympus and Mitsubishi opening their offices in the buildings’ 24,000 sqm of space. Experts from JLL were responsible for the commercialization of the project.

Demand on the Warsaw office market reached 880,000 sqm with 225,000 sqm in the form of pre-lets. JLL summarised the situation on the Polish office market at the end of 2019.

Developers operating on the six largest Polish cities sold a total of 17,600 units in the fourth quarter of 2019, which is 9% more than in the previous quarter. This increased annual sales to 65,400 units, which is nearly 1% better than last year. It was also the second-best result in the history of the primary housing market in Poland, according to JLL’s report.

The Expoziției Area attracted almost 15% of the total demand for office spaces registered last year in Bucharest, thus entering the top 5 areas preferred by companies to locate their offices, at a very short distance from Center - West, the most dynamic area in the last 3-4 years, according to JLL:

Sustainability is top of the agenda this year at Davos as governments and businesses around the world are grappling with ways to combat climate change. Of the four global issues the World Economic Forum has said “clearly stand out as urgent and important” at the annual meeting in Switzerland, the first two are how to address environmental challenges harming our ecology and economy, and figuring out how to transform industries to achieve more sustainable business models. The built environment has a huge role to play in developing and implementing solutions, with technology, investment and robust governance central to success, according to the City Momentum Index report from JLL.