As service charge budgets are set for 2023, occupiers and landlords with vacancy can expect significant operational cost increases across their real estate portfolios. Property Forum talked to Ryan Wray MRICS, Principal at Avison Young Czech Republic to understand what you can do to make savings and get better value from your budget.

According to Savills latest report, 2021 was the best year on record for the Czech industrial market in terms of tenancy activity, despite the low volume of new completions and extremely low vacancy rate. Gross take-up totalled a staggering 2.32 million sqm, being 53% higher than the previous record of 1.55 million sqm seen in 2020. Annual net take-up (excl. renewals) reached 1.48 million sqm, a 46% increase over the former record of 1.01 million sqm registered in 2017, Savills reports.

Opened in September 2021, the Norblin Factory is filling up with tenants. The project’s investor, the Capital Park Group, has signed lease contracts with another six concepts which will soon join the revitalised complex at Żelazna Street. The office space of the multifunctional building was already fully leased last year.

ESET, a global leader in cybersecurity, unveiled its plans for the previously announced ESET Campus – an innovation and technology hub based in its headquarters city, Bratislava, Slovakia. The 55,000 sqm campus designed by architectural studio BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group will house the company’s new headquarters and will become a centre of excellence, creating strong cybersecurity, AI and innovation ecosystem for Slovakia and Central Europe.

The Industrial Agency of Colliers International Czech Republic completed the signature of a 15,688 sqm lease agreement for a German multinational engineering and technology company for industrial premises at CTPark Bor.

C2H, the company that owns the Kara and Pietro Filipi fashion stores in the Czech Republic, has recently emptied its 58 stores in the country to prevent landlords it owes rent to from seizing its inventory as security for payments.

Prologis has launched its Essentials Marketplace for Europe, a procurement tool that saves customers time when setting up, expanding or upgrading their operations. This online platform offers a raft of key warehouse interior products and fully managed instalment processes.

The top 50 largest technology companies in Romania, which realise software and digital solutions for group companies or for third parties, have increased their turnover and teams in Romania by approximately four times in the last ten years, reaching a cumulative turnover of €3 billion and over 50,000 employees in 2019, according to a Cushman & Wakefield Echinox analysis.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to cause multiple disruptions to the world’s industries and economies and this is also true for many CEE currencies. Those countries that have not adopted the Euro, or are not pegged to it, have each seen a ca. 10% depreciation in currency value during the period February to March 2020. The Romanian Leu is the exception which has depreciated just 1%, largely due to central bank intervention, Colliers reports in its CEE Special Insights Series.

Cushman & Wakefield consolidate its Warsaw headquarters at The Warsaw HUB in the city’s new business centre. The global commercial real estate services company will occupy nearly 2,500 sqm of office space in the skyscraper.