Colliers expects that a fair amount of market activity in 2020 will come from lease renegotiations and renewals as opposed to new and pre-lease transactions and that we might record more sub-leases being offered if companies need to downsize. Tenant covenants will receive additional scrutiny by landlords, banks and investors in order to limit risk to a sustainable income. Colliers launched the ExCEEding Borders Office Snapshot for the 14 CEE capital cities and summarised the key Q1 2020 market results with year on year comparison.

The PZU Group has leased 47,000 sqm of office, retail, service and warehouse space, as well as 325 parking spaces in Generation Park Y – Skanska’s highest office building in CEE located in Warsaw. With this lease, the building is now 98.5 percent occupied. The PZU Group will move its headquarters to the new office in Q2 2022. This is the largest lease agreement in the history of the office market in Poland and the history of the Skanska Group in the world.

Israeli-owned real estate developer Hagag Development Europe has received the urban planning certificate for the restoration of Știrbei Palace in Bucharest which will be converted into a modern office building.  

Solid economic fundamentals will be instrumental in the fast rebuilding of asset values in Poland. If they are not weakened by the country’s overregulation and fiscal policy, and the government temporarily helps entrepreneurs maintain liquidity, investor confidence in most commercial real estate sectors should fully recover by the end of this year, says Bolesław Kołodziejczyk, PhD, Head of Research & Advisory, Cresa Poland.

Czech real estate group Českomoravská Nemovitostní (ČMN) has completed the €74.5 million (CZK 2 billion) acquisition of two office buildings, City West C1 and C2 in Prague's Stodůlky area. The seller is Luxembourg-registered Capital Financial Holdings (CFH). Raiffeisenbank provided financing for the acquisition.

Savills Investment Management has signed a new lease agreement involving Gate One Business Park in Warsaw. An international company dealing with data centre services has leased 21,000 sqm of the modern space at the Gate Two building. The term of the agreement is 15 years.

Westbridge Advisory International AG, the international entity of operating cost optimizer Westbridge Advisory, has converted a portfolio of six office buildings for Union Investment in Poland to green electricity. By bundling the entire supply with a single utility and the switch of the entire portfolio to green electricity, it was possible to reduce CO2-emissions by roughly 7,600 tons. The properties, located in Warsaw, Wroclaw and Poznan, have a total rental area of around 155,000 sqm and an aggregated annual electricity consumption of 25 gigawatt-hours.

Shops, restaurants and hotels have opened again in nearly all of the markets in which the listed real estate investment company S Immo AG operates. Romania was the last to reopen, as the strict restrictions remained in place significantly longer there. However, hotels have been operating without restrictions and all shops have been open here as well since Monday, 15 June 2020. T

Codic Hungary is embarking on the revitalisation of several listed buildings and their surroundings at Budapest’s Margit Boulevard. The developer plans to preserve the architectural values of a listed school building, a neglected listed building block and revive the surrounding green areas.

Office spaces will become a hive of activity in the future as more businesses embrace office designs which promote innovation, creativity and team collaboration, predicts Colliers International. The EMEA Workplace Advisory team has published its latest report which evaluates feedback from its global Work from Home survey to discuss future workplace trends.