The number of state-owned companies relying on modern office space is on the rise, reveals Savills. The public sector and state-owned firms more than doubled their share in office take-up in Warsaw in Q1-Q3 2020 compared to last year. What’s more, Savills estimates that negotiations are pending for more than the amount of office space leased by this sector in the nine months to September 2020.

238,300 sqm of office space was delivered to the Warsaw office market in the first three quarters of 2020, reveals Cushman & Wakefield. Due to the worsening sentiment of market participants, prime headline rents edged down by €0.25/sqm/month, standing at €23.75/sqm/month in the centre and at €14.75/sqm/month in non-central locations.

While in Poland over 20% of investors are favouring projects that have high ESG-related ratings (which is fourth highest figure globally), Hungary and the Czech Republic are the two countries with the highest share (over 40%) of respondents saying that ESG considerations play no role when they evaluate projects, according to the latest results of the RICS Global Commercial Property Monitor.

Poland’s commercial property investment volume surpassed €4 billion in the January-September period of 2020, down by 12.4% on the same period in 2019. Logistics accounted for nearly half of the investment activity while offices made up 38% of the transaction volume in Q1-Q3 2020, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

During the first nine months of 2020, developers completed over 530,000 sqm of office space in Poland: 231,600 in Warsaw and 305,000 sqm in eight major regional markets (Kraków, Wrocław, Tricity, Poznań, Łódź, Katowice, Lublin and Szczecin). Due to the new supply and moderate demand, more than 1.2 million sqm of office space is now available. Axi Immo presented the latest data for the Polish office market as at the end of the third quarter of 2020.

CA Immo signed and closed the acquisition of Postepu 14, a Class A office building located in the Mokotow district of Warsaw, from developer HB Reavis. The property totals around 34,500 sqm GLA and is nearly fully let to tenants such as AstraZeneca and Samsung Electronics. The purchase price is approximately €87 million, with annual gross rental income of around €6.5 million, reflecting a 7.5% gross initial yield.

Retailing is giving way to e-commerce. The pandemic has undoubtedly changed consumer habits, stimulated the development of the online purchasing sector and has underlined new needs in logistics and warehousing. This means that the supply chain will need to be reorganized along with an increase in storage space and moving product location closer to the consumer. As the first warehouse developer in Poland, 7R is rapidly responding to new market realities by offering its tenants facilities of up to 12 meters high. This solution will significantly reduce the costs of storing goods and allow for more efficient use of warehouse space.

Accolade is investing €35 million in the construction of Panattoni Park Bydgoszcz III. With the help of the investor, Panattoni has already completed two modern parks with nearly 90,000 sqm of BREEAM certified sustainable warehouse space in the Bydgoszcz area.

Funds managed by Partners Group are to acquire nine newly built, largely occupied office buildings from BUMA's portfolio and two assets under construction with a total leasable area of approximately 125,000 sqm for circa €200 million. The assets are located in Kraków and Wrocław. REINO Partners will partner with Partners Group to manage the portfolio.

Partially due to the pandemic, demand for office space on Poland’s largest regional markets from January to September was 11% lower year-on-year. Many tenants are temporarily postponing expansion plans and relocation decisions, according to JLL’s summary.