COVID-19 has completely redefined what office means and companies have a lot of thinking to do when it comes to finding the right location for their workforce to work from. Companies are increasingly turning towards flex offices and according to Business Wire, the global flex office space market is expected to grow from $7.97 billion in 2020 to $8.14 billion in 2021 at an annual growth rate of 2.1% before reaching $13.03 billion by 2025.

IBM Hungary is relocating its headquarters to Corvin Quarter in Budapest. The tech company will be moving into Futureal’s Corvin Innovation Campus in a phased co-location starting in 2023.

Experts participating at Portfolio's recent FM & Hybrid Office conference in Budapest discussed the present and future of the office market. The past 18 months have started a multitude of changes as WFH, the sub-leasing of office space, the change in internal configurations, the return to offices, sustainable management and changing tenant requirements have led to a substantial transformation in the lives of office market players. Experts agree that hybrid office use is currently the most likely outcome, as only a few businesses have adopted WFH full-time.

Cavatina Holding has completed work on the top floors of the Global Office Park office towers in Katowice. The office buildings will be 104 m high each and will provide over 55 thousand sq m of space. Their commissioning is planned for the second quarter of 2022, and they are already leased in about 54%.

Austrian privately held development company Karimpol Group officially launched the construction of the Squarebizz project in Bratislava. The first phase consists of 15,000 sqm of retail, storage, service and showroom facilities accompanied by up to 2,000 sqm of offices in three separate buildings. A second construction phase will extend the Squarebizz Bory by another 15,000 sqm of modern flexible space plus offices.

Companies from the BPO sector may be reducing their offices in North America or Western Europe, but they are taking up more space in CEE at the same time. Yovav Carmi, CEO of GTC talked to Property Forum about issuing green bonds, ESG strategies and the BPO industry.

Ghelamco has just announced that the general contractor of the KREO office building in Kraków will be Mota-Engil Central Europe. KREO is the third office development project, after Craft in Katowice and The Bridge in Warsaw, announced by Ghelamco between 2020 and 2021.

CBRE has been appointed the exclusive leasing agent of the Gdański Business Center in Warsaw, which is part of the Savills Investment Management portfolio.

Domestic investors own some of the largest office projects that are under development in Romania, although international players have the biggest portfolios in the market. 

HEINEKEN Global Shared Services has leased over 8,500 sqm in Podium Park A, an office building in Kraków's Czyżyny district. The tenant was represented in the transaction by the advisory company Colliers. Its experts also support the client in the process of arranging and preparing the office in the new location.