December turned out to be a good month for construction companies and producers of building materials, according to the latest monthly report by research company Spectis, “Construction market in Poland – February 2021”. However, the outlook for the construction industry in 2021 remains moderately bleak, mostly because of a high comparison base of Q1 2020. That the second half of the year could see an upturn is yet suggested by higher order books reported by the top 20 construction companies.

Panattoni has developed a BTS manufacturing facility for Phoenix Contact E-Mobility in Rzeszów. Modern charging systems for electric vehicles will be manufactured and tested at the 15,000 sqm facility, and the production plant will supply them to global companies and operators of the electro-mobility equipment & infrastructure. The products of Phoenix Contact E-Mobility include cutting edge High Power Charging devices, designed for rapid and safe charging of electric cars. The newly completed plant will also include research and development department for new products and technologies.

Total new units sold in Poland’s six largest markets in 2020 exceeded 53,000, a mere 19% y/y decline during the pandemic. Maintaining market prices meant that in terms of sales value, last year’s excellent performance was comparable to previous boom years. JLL summarizes Polish residential market.

AEW has acquired a newly developed city logistics asset in Warsaw, Poland. The asset was purchased from Panattoni in an off-market transaction on behalf of a separate account mandate for a German pension fund.

Close to 130,000 sq m was delivered to the market across all retail formats in Q4 2020, bringing last year’s total new supply to more than 340,000 sq m. Despite pandemic-related restrictions and successive lockdowns (7-28 November and from 28 December onwards), the fourth quarter witnessed 11 new retail completions and an outlet centre extension. Newly built schemes were sized under 20,000 sq m, and nearly half of the Q4 2020 new supply was delivered in cities below 50,000 inhabitants. Cushman & Wakefield summarizes current situation on Polish retail market.

Despite its unique nature, 2020 brought twice as many new offices in Warsaw as the previous year. Thanks to the high activity of developers, there is already a total of over 12 million sqm of office space in the largest cities in Poland. This year, the leaders of the real estate development market announce further completions of large investments. The companies implementing office projects throughout the country plan to commission up to 800 thousand sqm of new space.

Warsaw, Krakow, Gdansk (Tricity) and Wrocław are among the top ten markets for hotel operators in Central and Eastern Europe and in Southern and Eastern Europe, making Poland the regional leader. Hotel operators are also targeting other regional cities across Poland, says global real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield.

Heimstaden Bostad AB announces its second acquisition in Poland, consisting of three build-to-rent projects in Warsaw with 647 residential units of 29,851 sqm and 11 commercial units of 1,068 sqm for approximately SEK 842 million (PLN 381 million) and an option to acquire an additional 60 apartments. The seller and developer is Marvipol Development SA.

Nikodem Iskra, CEO of Murapol, one of the largest residential developers in Poland, believes that in 2021 the residential market will shake off the effects of the pandemic. He foresees further increases of apartment prices – in his opinion record-low interest rates are not only stimulating the mortgage market, but are also a strong impulse for investment activity

In 2020, demand for office space in regional cities was 16% lower compared to 2019, the vacancy rate increased by 3.2 pp and the volume of office space under construction is at its lowest in about five years. Advisory firm JLL summarizes the situation in the Polish office market at the end of 2020.