Czech real estate developer RC Europe has opened its third retail park in Romania, following an investment of €9 million. The retail park, operating under the Nest brand, is located in Oradea, occupying approximately 6.500 sqm GLA. Construction works on the project started in October 2019.

Polish company Scallier is developing a new chain of retail parks in small and medium-sized Romanian cities under the Funshop Park brand. By 2022, 6 facilities with a total leasable area of ​​40,000 sqm will be completed. Work is currently underway to prepare further investments. Scallier, based in Poznań, has been operating on the Polish market for nearly a decade and specializes in investment management in the sector of small and medium-sized commercial facilities.

Trei Real Estate GmbH increased its development volume to €960 million euros during H1 2020. This implies an increase by €60 million euros since year-end 2019 (€900 million). Compared to the prior-year figure (H1 2019: €730 million), the growth actually amounted to €230 million, which equals an increase by 31 percent year on year. A breakdown of the €960 million by type of use shows €175 million in the retail segment and €785 million in the residential segment.

Trei Real Estate GmbH has opened its 18th retail park under the Vendo Park brand in Poland. The retail property is located in Solec Kujawski in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian voivodship. The town of around 16,000 residents is located a two-hour drive south of Gdansk. The new Vendo Park provides a lettable area of around 3,000 square metres and 97 parking spots. The property is almost fully occupied. Its tenants include KiK, Sinsay, Martes Sport, RTV Euro AGD and Hebe, among others. Overall, Trei invested c. €3.8 million here.

Developer Prime Kapital and investment partner MAS Real Estate have opened 33,000 sqm GLA Dâmboviţa Mall shopping centre in the city Târgoviște, 80 km northwest of Bucharest.

Savills has been appointed by Atrium European Real Estate as sole letting agent for office space in all the buildings owned by the fund in Poland.

GTC’s rental and service revenues decreased by €3 million to €79 million in H1 2020. The decrease mainly resulted from a decrease in income of approximately €8 million due to rent relief imposed by governments during the lockdown of shopping malls and rent concessions and discounts provided by the Group to the retail tenants across the portfolio due to the COVID-19 outbreak combined with a decrease on rental revenues following the sale of GTC White House in the third quarter of 2019 and Neptun Office Center in the fourth quarter of 2019 of €3 million. The decrease was partially offset by an increase in the rental revenues due to completion of Ada Mall, Green Heart, ABC I and Matrix A.

Trei Real Estate GmbH has taken out a long-term loan in a volume of €51 million through its Polish subsidiary, Trei Real Estate Poland from pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank, a German specialist lender for commercial real estate finance. The loan represents a cross-border financing arrangement and breaks down into two tranches of five and ten years, respectively. It is collateralised with 40 supermarkets from the existing portfolio of Trei Poland, the supermarkets being occupied by Biedronka. Trei intends to use the borrowed capital to finance its growth trajectory.

The first half of the “pandemic year” was most difficult for retail players, considering the lockdown during the emergency state, but the recovery up until July has been better than most market participants were initially expecting, according to Colliers International’s market report for the first semester of 2020. In the industrial & logistics area, it has been business as usual during the pandemic, with some seeing big spikes in activity, but a significant pipeline of speculative developments and a competitive market are tilting the balance in favour or tenants.

Ever since shopping centres in Poland were reopened in May, the share of online sales in total retail sales has been falling steadily - it stood at 7.7% in June compared with 9.1% a month earlier and 5-6% before the pandemic. Cushman & Wakefield has summarised Q2 2020 on the Polish retail market.