Arcona Property Fund investing in Central and Eastern Europe has acquired a plot of land in the centre of the capital of Ukraine for approximately CZK 50 million (€2 million), Newstream.cz reports.

Despite the not-very-encouraging forecasts made by experts at the end of 2022, the office market in the Kyiv region in 2023 demonstrated stability and strengthening demand. Iryna Nastych talked to market experts and summarised the situation in an article prepared by the Ukrainian Real Estate Club for Property Forum  

As of summer 2022, leasing activity in the Kyiv office market was near a standstill and primarily driven by office optimization, as well as lease renewals and renegotiations of existing leases, according to the latest research of CBRE Ukraine. Whereas, as of the beginning of June, we observed a slight recovery in the level of office occupancy by employees who continued to work or who returned to Kyiv. Thus, typical office attendance among corporate occupiers was ca. 10% with many tenants in IT, high tech & telecommunications, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, agriculture, FMCG and industrial sectors planning to increase occupancy to 15%.

Earlier this week, Prague Mayor Zdeněk Hřib and Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski visited the Ukrainian capital and invited Kyiv to join the Pact of Free Cities. Founded in 2019 by the mayors of Bratislava, Budapest, Warsaw, and Prague, the pact aims to strengthen the values of freedom, dignity, democracy, and the rule of law.