CPI Property Group announced the acquisition of the Warsaw Financial Center office building in Warsaw, Poland. CPIPG acquired WFC by purchasing 100% of shares in a company owned since 2012 by Allianz Real Estate (acting on behalf of Allianz Group companies) and Curzon Capital Partners III, an investment core-plus fund managed by Tristan Capital Partners.

Another excellent year for the investment market, record office lease transactions in Warsaw and the burgeoning growth of alternative asset classes - these are some of the Polish commercial property market highlights of 2019. Savills forecasts that next year the market’s performance will depend on the health of the global economy, and key developments will include the completion of spectacular office towers and mixed-use projects.

Retail developer Apsys Polska has started preparing its first residential project, which will be built in Warsaw’s Mokotów area in a joint venture with an undisclosed partner.

Echo Investment has received a building permit to start the first two office buildings at Fuzja. Thus, the developer has begun the next stage of the revitalization of the postindustrial part of Łódź. The developer, at the site of the former Karol Scheibler factory, will construct two office buildings with completion scheduled for 2020.

From retail survival and sustainability investment through to the impact of automation and major political and economic change, Cushman & Wakefield’s new EMEA insight report explores the major themes the commercial real estate industry needs to keep in mind next year.

TriGranit has laid the foundation stone of the first phase of its new Class-A office development, Silesia for Business in Katowice, Poland. The office building will be the final element of the mixed-use development project of TriGranit, started 15 years ago and realised on a 30 hectares large brownfield area. The post-mining area today includes a shopping mall and residential estates, while the new office building, providing approx. 26,000 sqm GLA and more than 400 parking spaces, is expected to be completed in Q4, 2021.

Polish modular producer Polcom will be able to expand its operations thanks to a financial package provided by a consortium of banks to which the EBRD is contributing PLN 108.43 million (€25 million equivalent).

The development of e-commerce has a growing impact on the development of the industrial real estate sector. The origins can be found in the change of our shopping habits – the popularization of e-commerce has revolutionized logistics operations in warehouses, according to Adrian Semaan, Consultant at the Industrial and Logistics Agency at Cushman & Wakefield Poland.

According to the latest RICS Commercial Property Monitor, occupier and investment sentiment remains positive across main CEE markets, even though the Czech Republic has posted its most subdued set of readings in four years. In many countries, demand for retail assets fell on both the occupier and investment sides of the market. Based on rental and capital value projections, secondary retail is visibly suffering in Austria, Bulgaria, Poland and Romania.

According to a new report by Panattoni and CBRE, the attitude towards the future in the logistics, production and trade industries changed slightly compared to last year. The Optimism Level Index in Logistics and Supply Chain in Poland for 2019-2020 was determined at an average level of 49 points, which is lower than the result obtained last year (57.4). Logistics companies are again more positive about the future (53.9 points) than production and trade enterprises using logistics services (44 points). Despite this change in mood, as many as 7 out of 10 institutions assess the costs of supply chain operations in Poland as lower than the EU average, and 6 out of 10 believe that Poland is competitive as a place of investment - both statistics have increased since last year.