Savills has set up China Desk, a special section within its Warsaw-based Corporate Finance & Valuation department, dedicated to Chinese investors interested in the Polish commercial real estate market.

Austria (+74%), Romania (+54%), the Netherlands (+46%), and Denmark (+32%) experienced the greatest annual increases in commercial property investment in 2017, as total investment across Europe rose to €234 billion, a 7% increase year-on-year, according to.

Savills has consolidated and reorganised some of its business lines in Poland. It has set up an investment hub providing a comprehensive range of advisory services on the commercial real estate investment market through cooperation involving individual departments.

The Polish Office Research Forum has published its figures for 2017 for the office market in eight major regional cities in Poland (Kraków, Wrocław, the Tri-City, Katowice, Poznań, Łódź, Szczecin, Lublin). The market data prepared by a team of analysts includes modern office stock, new completions, take-up volumes and vacancy rates.

Savills will manage two buildings in Poznań and three buildings in Warsaw. The two office buildings in Poznan are RB House and Dwór Hamburski. Tenants include IPF Group and T-Mobile Polska. Two other office buildings are Jasna 24 and Wola Plaza in Warsaw. Tenants include i.a. Hochtief Poland. The third Warsaw building is a modern warehouse Airport House with office and social facilities. The total portfolio under management amounts to 25,000 sqm.

The growth of the start-up culture and the high-tech sector, leading to an ever larger number of projects that require swift staff reorganisations, has sparked a boom on the Polish market of co-working space and serviced offices, as revealed by real estate advisory firm Savills in its latest report Flexible Workplaces in Poland.

Established in 2011 by Martina Bartek and Michaela Semanova, who will join Savills as directors, SB Property Services has 25 staff managing a portfolio of commercial properties comprising 185,000 sqm with a value of over €400 million. Clients include Commerz Real and Czech fund management company REICO (an investment company of Czech bank Ceska sporitelna). Among the Class A properties managed are Charles Square Center, the Melantrich Building, Rohan Business Center and the Trianon office building.

Savills has appointed Jaroslav Kaizr as Head of Leasing Agency for the Czech Republic & Slovakia.

Savills has extended its Central and Eastern European (CEE) network by forming an association with ESTON International, Hungary’s leading independent property advisor within the real estate industry. The announcement follows Savills opening of an office in Prague in January 2017 and the mutual co-operation agreed with Crosspoint in Romania in July 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.