Poland has seen record-breaking absorption on the office market. In the last year alone, companies occupied additional 800,000 sqm of office space. This translates into more than 80,000 additional job positions in modern office buildings, JLL reports.

Exchange Palace the former Budapest Stock Exchange building co-owned by Canadian developer Tippin Corporation and Luxembourg Optimum Fund Management, has received a final building permit and will commence reconstruction works in 2018. The owners appointed JLL & CBRE appointed as co-exclusive leasing agents.

LS Cable, a Korean manufacturing company, has decided to launch its division in Dzierżoniów - in the region of Lower Silesia. The facility will be established within an existing object offering 10,000 sqm. Experts from JLL represented LS Cable in the processes of seeking the appropriate property and negotiating purchase conditions.

According to data by JLL, the volume of office investment transactions concluded in Poland for 2017 was approx. €1.6 billion. A record-breaking €970 million of office investment deals was reported in major cities outside of Warsaw.

Zalando Lounge, online fashion platform Zalando’s shopping club, plans to build a 130,000 square meters large fulfilment centre together with its developer Hillwood. The new site will increase the logistics capacity of Zalando Lounge and flexibility of operations. Intralogistics will be tailored to the specific requirements of Zalando Lounge, taking temporary campaigns and occasionally larger products from the home category into account. The site will be operated by a provider. About 500 jobs will be created in the mid-term.

2017 was not the strongest year for Slovakia’s investment market but if all goes well we might see the previous record of €850 million being broken this year. Peter Nitschneider, Country Manager for Slovakia at JLL shared his expectations for the Slovak property investment market.

Available space on the industrial property market in the Czech Republic decreased and it makes the situation for occupiers in seek of premises more complicated. Potential tenants have to put up with longer terms of project realization in new warehouse spaces. The Czech industrial property market has changed from a market of tenants to a landlords market, JLL reports.

JLL and CBRE have been jointly appointed to lease Budapest ONE Business Park, the new office development project of Futureal Group in Hungary. The two advisors will cooperate on a co-exclusive basis for the leasing of the 68,000 square meter office complex.

2017 was the best year ever for Poland's industrial market with gross demand totalling 3.9 million sqm, JLL reports. Retailers and logistics operators continued to drive the market, together accounting for more than 65% of net take-up in 2017.

The fourth quarter of 2017 was very strong for the office market in Prague. Demand significantly increased and annual gross demand reached a new record. Five new office buildings were completed and the vacancy rate decreased to 7.5 %, while prime headline rents grew, JLL reports.