Romanian online retailer eMAG is investing €90 million in a new logistics centre near Bucharest. Construction works for the 130,000 sqm facility will begin this month and completion is scheduled for September next year. By July 2022, all automations and technologies at the centre should be operational.

The first half of the “pandemic year” was most difficult for retail players, considering the lockdown during the emergency state, but the recovery up until July has been better than most market participants were initially expecting, according to Colliers International’s market report for the first semester of 2020. In the industrial & logistics area, it has been business as usual during the pandemic, with some seeing big spikes in activity, but a significant pipeline of speculative developments and a competitive market are tilting the balance in favour or tenants.

The first half of 2020 was the strongest on record for the warehouse and industrial market in Poland, says Savills. Despite COVID-19 challenges, take-up set an all-time high halfway through the year. In addition, the leasing volume and the amount of new space coming onto the market were higher in Q2 than in the first three months of the year.

Gross demand on the Polish industrial market reached 2.2 million sqm in H1 2020 which is the best result for the first half of the year in the market’s history. New leases and expansions accounted for nearly 1.7 million sqm, which is a 30% improvement y-o-y. This means that Poland is the only country in Europe to have seen net demand growth in H1 2020, according to JLL.

Panattoni has announced another Warsaw development, which is to be built on a 1.9 ha site next to the S7 junction with the S8 expressway just a few kilometres from Warsaw's Chopin Airport. City Logistics Warsaw Airport II will have an area of 9,000 sqm and construction work is to begin in August.

The Polish industrial market continues its strong momentum. Both take-up and supply reached high levels in H1 2020, say experts of global real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield, summarising the first half of 2020 on the industrial market in Poland.

CBRE Global Investors, on behalf of its Logistics Venture Fund (LoVe), has acquired Building C of 7R Park Beskid I, a newly developed 15,000 sqm logistics warehouse located in Czechowice-Dziedzice in the Bielsko-Biała region of Poland.  The vendor was 7R.S.A.

Kajima Properties Europe and Savills Investment Management have launched a new strategic partnership with the completion of the acquisition of Panattoni Europe’s interest in the 144,880 sqm Łódź City VI logistics park in Central Poland.

The Polish warehouse market maintained its robust momentum in the first half of 2020, with a record 2.38 million sqm leased. Gross take-up in the second quarter of 2020 – during a time of strict COVID-19 lockdown measures - was as much as 50% higher compared to the same period in 2019, at 1.36 million sqm. Such good outcomes were the result of high demand for space on the back of booming e-commerce trade and numerous BTS transactions which commenced earlier in the year, according to Axi Immo.

Over the second quarter, Prologis turned in a strong result both globally and in Europe, despite ongoing uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The logistics sector remained resilient during the period with robust take-up levels and declining vacancy thanks to tight supply and sustained and growing demand.