Helaba, Berlin Hyp and pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank have jointly underwritten an investment facility totaling €370 million to refinance the Warsaw Spire Office complex. The assets are owned by the newly established Ghelamco European Property Fund. The transaction closed in August 2017. Helaba, Berlin Hyp and pbb are acting as joint lead arrangers providing equal portions of the funding, with Helaba acting as facility and security agent of the transaction.

The handover of the second office building one month ahead of schedule completed the construction of the West Station scheme next to the Warszawa Zachodnia station. With an area of 38,000 sqm, the new building is one of the largest built in Warsaw this year. More companies have just shown their appreciation for its offices by leasing over 8,300 sqm of space.

Investment volumes in Central and Eastern Europe (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Russia and Turkey) reached €7 billion in H1 2017. This is 6% less than in the same period of the previous year.

Panattoni Europe has embarked on the project to build the central warehouse for the building and home design retail chain, OBI. The BTS facility with close to 50,700 sqm will be delivered near Łódź, in the Nowosolna commune. Its development has been divided into two stages – with the first one scheduled for completion in November 2017.

Savills has been appointed as an exclusive agent responsible for the recommercialisation of part of Centrum Krakowska 61 retail park in Warsaw. The complex will soon undergo a substantial refurbishment, including refurbishment of one of the buildings which comprises 11,800 sqm.

SachsenFonds, a company that manages investments in real estate and renewable energy sources, is changing its name. The new business name EURAMCO stands for European Asset Management Company and reflects its growing presence on international markets. The company was started in 1999 as one of the subsidiaries of Landesbank Sachsen. Today, the EURAMCO Group administers close to €4 billion in approximately 60 private investment funds. In Europe, EURAMCO has three offices: the headquarters in Ascheim near Munich (investment management in Western Europe), in Prague (investment management in Central and South-Eastern Europe) and in Warsaw. In addition, the company also operates on the Australian market with a branch office in Sydney.

JLL has been selected as the exclusive leasing agent for office and retail space located in Ghelamco's biggest investment in Poland to date, The Warsaw HUB. The complex will consist of three skyscrapers and it will offer approx. 113,000 sqm of multi-functional space.

The first half of 2017 saw the Czech Republic overtake Poland as the most popular investment destination within CEE. Based on the current pipeline of deals Poland might retake its position rather soon, nevertheless, the combination of growth, yields and stability make Czech Republic and other countries in the CEE region highly attractive to international and domestic investors. Luke Dawson, Managing Director & Head of Capital Markets CEE at Colliers International shared his expectations with Property Forum.

BNP Paribas Real Estate Poland acting as the exclusive agent commenced the process of recommercialisation of the Class A office space in the Diamante Plaza building in Kraków on behalf of the building’s owner, Aldesa, a leading Spanish construction company.

In the first half of 2017 the warehouse market was unquestionably the fastest growing commercial property sector in Poland. The highest volume of industrial and warehouse space was delivered to the market around Poznań, i.e. 133,000 sqm, while the largest scheme of 161,000 sqm is currently under construction in Szczecin. The record numbers in respect of the schemes delivered to the market are not discouraging developers from commencing new projects.