JLL has appointed Miroslav Barnas as Country Manager of its Czech Republic business, which is headquartered in Prague, with immediate effect. He will lead the Czech business alongside his existing responsibilities as Country Manager for JLL's business in Slovakia.

According to JLL, almost €900 million were invested into Romanian property in 2016, 35% more than in the previous year. 2016 has been a record breaking year at a country level all over CEE with the highest ever volumes recorded in the Czech Republic and Slovakia and second best ever results recorded in Poland, Hungary and the SEE region.

Nearly 100,000 sqm of new office space was delivered to the Budapest market in 2016, the highest figure since 2010. Meanwhile, demand picked up in the last quarter of the year with a large share of the total leasing volume made up of pre-leases and new transactions. At the same time, the office vacancy rate has returned to its downward trajectory, reaching 9.5%, the lowest rate on record.

ZF TRW, a global automotive supplier, has selected Symetris Business Park – developed by Echo Investment – as the location for its new electronics engineering centre in Łódź. The company has leased nearly 2,400 sqm of space. JLL advised ZF TRW on the process of selecting the new space.

2016 saw the highest developer activity in the history of the Polish office market. New supply is expected to remain strong in 2017 with 1.4 million sqm of new space currently under development. JLL published its preliminary summary of Poland's office market performance in 2016

According to JLL’s review of last year, the Czech industrial market has exceeded the 6 million sqm mark in 2016 which makes it – along with the Polish one – one of the most advanced markets in CEE. 2016 gross-take up on the Czech industrial market totalled 1.2 million sqm which makes it one of the best years on record after the similarly successful years such of 2014 and 2015. Due to strong constant demand, the national average vacancy rate declined to 4%, which is the decade´s low and one of the lowest indicators in the market history. 

JLL has been selected by the new owner of Swan Office & Technology Park as property and asset manager of the office building located in the Northern part of Bucharest. JLL's responsibilities comprise maintaining relations with tenants and extensive operational management services including overseeing subcontractors and maintenance costs.

According to JLL’s preliminary forecasts, the total volume of real estate deals on the Polish investment market in 2016 may amount to almost €4.4 billion. The real standout performer was the retail market which came in with nearly €2 billion, followed by the office segment with €1.7 billion and the industrial/logistics sector with nearly €0.5 billion.

During Q4 2016 the total commercial real estate investment transaction volume reached some €270 million in Hungary, pushing the 2016 volume to above €1.7 billion, the highest annual figure since 2007– according to JLL Hungary’s latest preliminary statistics. According to JLL Hungary’s preliminary statistics office transactions generated roughly 48% of the annual investment volumes, followed by retail (27%) and logistics (14%). Hungarian investors generated the highest share of the annual volumes (30%) followed by US-based (20%) and German (14%) investors.

Panattoni Europe is developing a warehouse facility for DSV Solutions. The investment spanning nearly 25,000 sqm is being built at Panattoni Park Janki II and will be delivered to the tenant as early as the beginning of August 2017. The lease was mediated by JLL.