AFI Europe has officially started the development of its first Romanian retail park in Arad. The project will have a leasable area of 29,400 sqm and has already reached an occupancy rate of 70%. 

Czech construction company HSF System completed the construction of the second part of the retail park H-Park 2 in Brno as the general contractor. The investor was RLRE Carina Property. The financial volume of the project was approximately CZK 70 million (€2.8 million).

At the end of June 2022, the supply of modern retail space in the Czech Republic amounted to almost 3.97 million sqm. Shopping centres take about 67%, retail parks 31% and outlets the remaining 2% of the market. During the first six months of 2022, the retail park construction boom has not stopped yet and the retail market expanded by 19,500 sqm. Over the last five years, the share of retail parks has increased by 5%. The largest completed project in the first six months of this year was Shopping Centre Řepy in Prague. Another 52,300 sqm of retail space is currently under construction across 12 projects, of which 31,200 sqm is expected to be completed this year, says JLL in its retail market report for Q2 2022.

The Slatina Shopping Park, located in Southern Romania, has reached a total commercial area of 8,700 sqm following an extension completed by Square 7 Properties and Mitiska REIM investment fund. 

Investors and clients in Poland are focusing on local shopping centres, says advisory firm Walter Herz. 

The year 2021 has recorded over 65,000 sqm of the space in newly completed retail parks. This is the highest growth of the retail space in the Czech Republic in five years. Behind this success, there is mainly the stable interest among shoppers, long-term lease contracts and tenant expansion as also a surge of interest among investors. Nevertheless, the higher costs are now slowing the construction of the new retail parks. Therefore, a boost in the demand for space and likely push up rents as well are expected, states Cushman & Wakefield in their last report.

Adventum Group’s largest deal to date – a portfolio of 18 retail parks anchored by Tesco across Hungary and the Czech Republic with a GLA of 360,000 sqm let to over 900 tenants – has come to a successful completion and with this transaction Adventum’s assets under management has reached €1 billion.

Fidurock, the Czech/Dutch company that owns Retail Park Trnava, has started to build phase II of the project, which is located in Western Slovakia, 44 km northeast of Bratislava. The extension of this retail park is planned to be completed by the end of this year.

Sylvie Geuten-Carpentier, Managing Director Poland and Tomas Cifra, Managing Director Romania, Czech Republic & Slovakia at Mitiska REIM talked to Property Forum about the trends driving the convenience retail market and shared some insight into the company’s investment strategy.

Immofinanz has just leased the last free unit in its Hungarian Stop Shop portfolio, reaching a 100% occupancy rate. The newest and last tenant is Sportisimo in Stop Shop Keszthely. The company has roughly 136,000 sqm of fully leased retail space in 14 locations across Hungary.