Krakow retains the crown as Poland’s largest regional office market as it saw its office stock rise by 17% in the past year to 1.16 million sqm, says real estate advisory firm Cresa in its latest report.

At the end of H1 2018, there was more than 2.13 million sqm of warehouse and industrial space under construction across Poland with Central Poland accounting for more than one-fourth of the development pipeline, according to Cresa. Despite the healthy supply, the vacancy rate will remain below 5% this year and is likely to edge down to approximately 4% next year on account of a base effect and the expected robust occupier demand.

Atrium European Real Estate Limited has signed an agreement to acquire Wars Sawa Junior, a prime retail asset located in the heart of Warsaw and in its most prominent high street retail area, for a consideration of €301.5 million. Atrium is to acquire Wars Sawa Junior from PFCEE, a fund managed by CBRE Global Investors, using a mixture of existing cash resources and external financing.

More than 180,000 sqm of retail space was added to the Polish retail market in H1 2018 and another 330,000 sqm is expected to be completed by year-end 2018. This will represent an increase of over 25% year-on-year, bringing Poland’s total retail stock to more than 14,800,000 sqm. The new supply will be concentrated in cities with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants, accounting for 40% of this year’s openings. Cushman & Wakefield has published another edition of its MarketBeat report.

In H1 2018, demand on Poland’s industrial market was 2 million sqm - this is the best ever result recorded in the market’s history. In addition, industrial stock in Poland has now exceeded 14 million sqm, according to JLL.

The overall European logistics yield dropped 14bps to 5.95% in Q2 2018, the first time it has fallen below 6% since Cushman & Wakefield began consistently tracking the three main property sectors in 1992, according to the firm’s DNA of Real Estate report.

Cresa, the world’s largest tenant-only commercial real estate firm, has opened an office in Krakow. Cresa already has five offices across Poland: in Warsaw, Wrocław, Tricity, Łódź and Krakow. Its Krakow office is located in High5ive.

Poland’s first office leasing transaction based on blockchain technology has taken place on the ShareSpace platform in August 2018. The tenant was Ricoh Poland, a company providing office solutions.

Balmain Asset Management Group has assumed 100% control of BSC Real Estate Advisors and BSC Property Management. The company has purchased a minority stake in the BSC companies and now holds 100% of the Group shares.

How do you incorporate the creation of an office into your business strategy as to support the growth of the organization and those that form it? Karolina Dudek from the Office Agency department at BNP Paribas Real Estate and Szymon Boniecki and Bartosz Rega from Monterail provide answers in a market report to be published in September.