South African fund Hystead has acquired of The Mall, one of the largest shopping centres in Bulgaria, located in the capital city Sofia. The acquisition, upwards of €156 million, represents the fourth investment in the region by Hystead Limited, a joint venture between Hyprop Investments and Homestead Limited, who previously acquired the Delta City shopping centres in Podgorica and Belgrade alongside Skopje City Mall in Macedonia at the end of 2016.
Net take-up of office spaces in Bucharest amounted to almost 80,000 sqm in the first half of the year, which means an additional 10,000 jobs, considering that companies usually allocate for each employee 8 square meters. In total, gross take-up reached 185,000 sqm in H1 2017, a small decrease when compared to first 6 month of last year (192,000 sqm), JLL reports.
During H1 2017, the retail stock in Poland grew by 63,100 sqm. Shopping centres accounted for 16,600 sqm, retail parks for 21,500 sqm and standalone projects for 25,000 sqm. Recent market openings include standalone store Agata Meble (18,000 sqm) in Rzeszów, retail park Kalinka (9,700 sqm) in Kalisz as well as Tarasy Grabiszyńskie centre (8,500 sqm) in Wrocław. JLL summarised H1 2017 on the retail market in Poland.
JLL Bratislava has announced two mid-year promotions. Ján Bošácky has been appointed Head of Research with overall responsibility for market research and advisory services, whereas Samuel Šporka, Head of Industrial Agency and Tenant Representation, has been promoted to Associate Director.
JLL will launch its new office in Łódź, which will be the company’s fifth unit in Poland. Marta Pyziak has been appointed head of the company’s newly-established unit.
In 2017, 151,000 sqm of new office premises will be added to the Prague Market. This represents an increase of 13% above ten-year average. JLL listed the most important players on the office development market in Prague.
PZU’s office building in Wrocław – Komandorska 12 – has been recognized with an LEED Gold certificate. The building includes systems that control water, heat and energy consumption. Furthermore, its architecture ensures access to natural daylight on 80% of floor space.
SAP Slovakia, is renting over 3,000 sqm of office space within the Twin City office complex in Bratislava. SAP also included in its new lease contract approximately 120 underground parking spaces. The branch moved from the BBC V office building after having its seat there for the past 10 years.
There is currently 1.66 million sqm of office space under development in Poland, of which 965,000 is located outside Warsaw. Historically, this is the highest construction activity registered on Poland's regional markets, JLL reports. During the first three months of 2017, companies signed lease agreements for 371,700 sqm of office space, of which 177,700 sqm was leased on markets outside Warsaw.
Reconstruction works on the former HQ of the Budapest Stock Exchange and the Hungarian Television are planned to start at the beginning of 2018 with a budget of €38 million. The 100-year-old building will be reborn as Exchange Palace, an office building with approximately 31,700 sqm of GLA:
Elegance Decor, the home & deco company, has leased 400 sqm in Bucharest-based Equilibrium 1 for its new office. The building has a total leasable area of 20,700 sqm and was developed by Skanska.
Majorel Polska, an international outsourcing services provider has extendied a lease agreement for the next 2 years and leased additional 400 meters for a new project - IT Hub in recently modernised Globis Poznań by GTC. It now occupies 3 200 sqm of A-class workspace. CBRE has advised Majorel Polska on concluding the lease contract.
NEPI Rockcastle Poland has extended its office lease agreement and enlarged its premises in the Cosmopolitan Twarda 4 building in Warsaw city centre. The shopping centre owner and operator now occupies 1,500 sqm of offices in the building.
New appointments
AXI IMMO decided to develop and expand its operational activity with an offer of complex services in property valuation. Grzegorz Chmielak was appointed as the Head of the new service line, and he will also manage the Capital Markets Department.
Tamás Kiss has joined Hungarian asset management company Diófa Alapkezelő Zt. and has been appointed deputy CEO. Previously he worked for several brokerage firms as a director of asset management and director of investment or compliance unit.
Tomasz Pietrzak, with MLP Group for more than five years, has been promoted to the position of Leasing Director Poland. Until recently responsible for the commercialisation of warehouse space in the Warsaw region, now he will manage leases across Poland.
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