The Polish retail market maintains its momentum despite the partial Sunday trading ban. This year’s supply is expected to hit approximately 490,000 sqm, the highest annual level in the last three years. Of that total, 52% will be delivered in cities a population of more than 400,000 while 42% will be handed over in cities with a population of less than 100,000, according to Cushman & Wakefield’s latest report.

NEPI Rockcastle announced that it will open Shopping City Satu Mare, its 18th shopping centre in Romania, on 6 December. The two-storey shopping centre will offer 29,000 sqm of leasable space, following an investment of over €40 million.

Deputy Mayor of Belgrade, Goran Vesić and CEO of MPC Properties Ingo Nissen have officially laid down a foundation stone at the construction site of a new shopping centre in Belgrade with over 43,000 sqm of sales space and a total built area of 130,000 sqm. The project is a joint venture of MPC Properties, the largest investor in the region of South-East Europe and Atterbury Europe, focused on shopping centre investments and retail development opportunities in Europe, which will collectively invest more than €110 million in this project.

CPI Property Group announced the appointment of Radek Zeman as Division Director and Barbara Topolska as Country Manager for Poland, in addition to the refinancing of the IGY shopping centre located in Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic. The newly secured loan of €60 million was provided by Komercni banka for a term of five years.

CEC Bank and Veranda Mall have signed two financing agreements totalling €34 million, aiming to refinance the development of the project and finance the expansion and modernisation of the shopping centre. Both funding rounds were provided in the form of investment credits for a period of 15 years.

Since the beginning of the year, more than €2.1 billion has been invested in Polish retail assets. JLL Poland summarised the situation on the local retail market at the end of Q3 2018.

Slovenian retailer Mercator has sold 10 shopping centres with a total GLA of 108,800 sqm in Slovenia to Austrian Supernova Group for €116.6 million. Mercator will rent parts of the centres, the company said in a filing to the Ljubljana Stock Exchange.

One of the most active commercial property developers of Budapest is expanding its portfolio. In addition to several office projects, it started the Hungarian capital’s first retail development in nearly a decade. Tibor Tatár, Futureal’s CEO talked to Property Forum about new projects and the challenges a developer needs to face.

Arena Mall shopping centre in Bacau, a reference for the retail market in the Moldova region, will enter into a comprehensive extension and modernization process that will result in a 60% increase of its leasable area and in the construction of a multi-storey car park.

There is room for online and conventional channel retail to continue co-existing side by side in the short to medium term in the CEE-6 markets, according to Colliers International. The solid further €71.5 billion expansion of retail sales out to 2022, 4.9% growth per annum overall, creates enough evolutionary room for multiple concepts to continue thriving. Conservative growth scenario sees e-commerce in CEE-6 expanding 8.8% per annum from a baseline of €13.1 billion to €20 billion.