Nearly 70,200 sqm of office space is currently under construction on Katowice’s office market, according to Cushman & Wakefield. Of the six projects underway, the largest is Face2Face Business Campus, comprising two phases with a total of 46,800 sqm.

Cordia, a major player in the Hungarian market owning numerous property developments in Romania and in three Polish cities, has started construction of its tallest residential property ever in Warsaw. Being built on the shore of Vistula river, the 164-apartment premium-class building offers easy access to any part of the Polish capital.

MLP Group is set to build a second logistics park in the Wrocław area. The MLP Wrocław West project will deliver a total of 70,000 sqm of modern space, the first handovers slated for October 2020.

Lublin’s total office stock remained unchanged at the end of June 2019, flatlining at 191,200 sqm, according to Cushman & Wakefield. Despite the lack of new supply, occupier activity was healthy, which pushed the city’s vacancy rate down to 10.6%, representing a 9.1 pp decrease year-on-year.

Those districts of Warsaw which can be reached by metro are becoming more attractive, according to JLL’s latest report. Can Bemowo match the rapid development taking place in Wola and Praga Północ?

Panattoni Europe has opened the largest manufacturing facility in its portfolio and the largest plant manufacturing household appliances in Europe – a dishwasher factory for BSH Sprzęt Gospodarstwa Domowego. The facility dedicated to Industry 4.0 was built in Łódź – next to the Central European Logistics Hub – taking up 57,000 sqm. The official opening took place on 10 September, 10 months after the acquisition of the site. The factory neighbours on the BSH Logistics Centre and the upcoming Panattoni Appliance Park, developed specifically to serve BSH’s manufacturing facility.

Kraków’s total office stock amounts to nearly 1.35 million sqm. According to reports from developers, more than 110,000 sqm is expected to be completed by the end of 2019, pushing this year’s new supply up to a record high of 200,000 sqm, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

Poland has maintained its dominant position in the investment market in Central and Eastern Europe with the highest diversity and liquidity of products and diversity of investors. Demand remained high in all sectors, but office transactions were clearly dominant.

Labour shortage and rising costs in construction are problems developers in CEE have had to learn to live with over the past years. Dr. Zoltán Nádasdy MRICS, Partner, Head of CEE Real Estate Investments Group at Noerr talked to Property Forum about the legal challenges investors and developers face on the Hungarian, Romanian and Polish markets.

pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank provided an investment loan and a VAT facility of €90 million in total to two real estate funds managed by Credit Suisse Asset Management. The funds will utilise the proceeds for the acquisition of the prime office building Astoria in Warsaw from the developer Strabag. pbb acted as arranger and sole lender under the facilities.