Ikea plans to build its third store in Romania next to the city of Timisoara. The Swedish retailer has reportedly applied for a permit to build a roundabout that would allow access to the future store. Ikea also plans to open stores in Brasov and Cluj-Napoca.

NEPI Rockcastle has started construction works on a new shopping mall in Satu Mare. NEPI’s eighteenth shopping centre in Romania is expected to be inaugurated at the end of 2018.

Atrium European Real Estate Limited announces its results for 2017. The company is focusing on owning quality assets in well-connected, strong, urban locations in the region's largest and strongest economies. 20 smaller assets were sold during 2017 and early 2018 for €80 million, with the effective exit from Hungary and the Czech portfolio rotation completed.

Retail space deliveries will accelerate towards 200,000 square meters in 2018, as new projects and extensions are scheduled in ten medium-size towns and cities across Romania, but no significant delivery is scheduled in capital Bucharest this year, according to reports released by Cushman & Wakefield Echinox.

S Immo has completed the upgrade of the Sun Plaza shopping centre in Bucharest and reopened all reconfigured areas to the public. The €30 million remodelling has added 11,000 sqm of new retail space to the shopping centre.

By the end of 2017, total retail stock in the Warsaw agglomeration amounted to 1.76 million sqm, of which shopping centres accounted for 1.2 million sqm. Other formats include retail parks (276,000 sqm), standalone retail objects (212,000 sqm) and outlet centres (57,000 sqm). Approximately 85,000 sqm of space was delivered to the Warsaw retail market last year with the largest completed object being Galeria Północna (64,000 sqm). Furthermore, the saturation level in the shopping centre format totalled 472 sqm / 1,000 inhabitants and was the third lowest rate among the eight major metropolitan areas nationwide. JLL summarised 2017 on the retail market in the Warsaw agglomeration.

The pace of change in property is undoubtedly getting faster. The way real estate is being built, managed and valued is being digitised which means that sooner or later many of the current job titles will disappear. Property Forum reports from MIPIM where a discussion held on the Colliers International boat provided a deep insight into the future of the property business.

The retail consultancy department of BNP Paribas Real Estate Poland, extends its competences and offers with a fully comprehensive platform RAM (Retail Active Management). It will support retailers, developers, investors and managers. The scope of activities of the new department that focuses on strategic consultancy, will be led by Fabrice Paumelle.

Multi Corporation, a pan-European fully integrated retail real estate service platform, recently acquired the asset and property management of Allee Centre. This shopping centre is located in the city-centre of Budapest and includes 46,700 sqm of retail space. Multi’s centre management team took over the management of Allee Centre on 1 January 2018, marking Multi’s first entry into the Hungarian retail real estate market. This is the fourteenth country in which Multi Corporation is developing its operations.

Retail and hotel sectors recorded highest investment volumes in the Croatian commercial property market in 2017. According to information available and Colliers’s estimate, 2017 brought more than €320 million investment in transactions of 22 investment properties. This does not include pending transactions or confidential deals.