We live in the era of smart phones, smart watches, smart cars and smart homes. But are we ready for super smart office buildings? An article by By Stefania Baldovinescu, Senior Partner, Real Estate Management Services at Colliers International Romania.

PZU’s office building in Wrocław – Komandorska 12 – has been recognized with an LEED Gold certificate. The building includes systems that control water, heat and energy consumption. Furthermore, its architecture ensures access to natural daylight on 80% of floor space. 

The Budapest office market is booming and as the needs of tenants are changing, developers need to pay attention not only to sustainability but to employee well-being as well. Panelists at Portfolio’s FM & Office 2017 conference in Budapest talked about the future of the office market in the capital.

SAP Slovakia, is renting over 3,000 sqm of office space within the Twin City office complex in Bratislava. SAP also included in its new lease contract approximately 120 underground parking spaces. The branch moved from the BBC V office building after having its seat there for the past 10 years.

HB Reavis has started the construction of the Stanica Nivy project in Bratislava. The Nivy Tower office building is the first to be built and is destined to become a landmark with the highest point reaching 125 metres.  The remaining construction of the scheme, which will include a new supra regional shopping centre, a modern marketplace and international bus terminal, will be launched in the summer.

There is currently 1.66 million sqm of office space under development in Poland, of which 965,000 is located outside Warsaw. Historically, this is the highest construction activity registered on Poland's regional markets, JLL reports. During the first three months of 2017, companies signed lease agreements for 371,700 sqm of office space, of which 177,700 sqm was leased on markets outside Warsaw. 

Skanska has launched the construction works of the second building of its Spark office complex in the Wola district of Warsaw. It will provide 18,000 sqm of modern office space and will be located at Serek Wolski. This ten-floor building, which will be developed during the II phase of Spark, will be delivered to market in Q1 2019.

Over time, some office locations enhance their position in the eyes of tenants while others – lose popularity. The reason for this change usually results from communication infrastructure as its development can create new business regions. JLL has taken a closer look at tenants’ preferences regarding office locations on major Polish markets based on concluded lease agreements. The company focused solely on new deals – excluding renewals of already existing contracts and expansions – signed in Warsaw (in 2012 and 2016), and Kraków, Wrocław, Tri-City, Katowice, Poznań and Łódź (in 2011 and 2016).

Reconstruction works on the former HQ of the Budapest Stock Exchange and the Hungarian Television are planned to start at the beginning of 2018 with a budget of €38 million. The 100-year-old building will be reborn as Exchange Palace, an office building with approximately 31,700 sqm of GLA:

Fenced-off construction sites, scaffold-enfolded buildings and grandiose developments – often only in plans – have become characteristic of the Budapest property market. Just four years after the deepest point of the recession, there is hardly any indication of those hard times left. The upwards trend exists not only on the residential market, but also on the office market, which impacts the majority of companies and employees. The largest investors adapted to the renewed demand and began building massive numbers of office buildings, and entire new areas of the city are being born.