PL

Edition 11 (185) November 2013

Editorial

Turning back the clocks

Who would not like to have Tim Lake’s ability? Whenever something goes wrong, he can go back in time and act completely differently, having learnt from his mistakes.

Ewa Andrzejewska
Office & mixed-use development

And the winners of the skyscraper race are…

POLAND Skyscrapers have captured the imaginations of Warsaw developers once again. Almost all of the major players on the market now have a tower block or two in the pipeline.

Radosław Górecki
Retail & leisure

From second to first

POLAND Does anyone remembers the one who came second? This seems to be the current attitude of the owners of second generation shopping centres who now have the ambition to become first choice locations for tenants. Will they succeed?

Aneta Cichla
Retail & leisure

Confident in Romania

ROMANIA “I personally believe in Romania – as does AFI as a group,” was the emphatic declaration made by David Hay, the CEO for Romania of AFI Europe, at the opening of the AFI Palace Ploiești shopping centre in Ploiești, a city of 180,000 people just north of Bucharest.

Alex Hayes
Residential

Home improvement

POLAND As far as sales are concerned, some developers have not had such a good quarter since the boom of 2007. What types of companies are we talking about?

And
Green projects

Changing environments

WORLD Greeen buildings are going to be of an even higher quality and their users will have even more comfort. How is this possible?

ZWiak
Warehouse & industrial

Source of the Amazon moves to the CEE region

POLAND/CZECH REPUBLIC To be world’s most focused retailer when it comes to consumers’ expectations, providing everyone with whatever they would like to buy on the internet – this is the mission of the US e-commerce market giant Amazon, whose sales revenue last year exceeded USD 60 bln. The company, which originates from Seattle, is making greater space for itself on the Old Continent by extending its network of distribution centres in Poland and the Czech Republic.

And
Stock market report

Stable bounce

The situation in the USA has been the focus of investors’ attention in the last few weeks. But the beginning of autumn has proved to be a very successful time for stock exchange investors

(Mir)
Feature

When malls stall

The DeadMalls.com website features projects that did not manage to stay in the retail business in the United States for long. A European version of the portal would certainly be busy if it covered Romania. In Poland the situation looks rather better, but the market is entering a tricky transformation period

Aneta Cichla, Alex Hayes
Feature

Mixing business with pleasure

Shoppers are become ever more demanding. In shopping centres they are now looking for something more than just the retail offer. Managers and tenants will have to try harder to get them to actually like being in the mall. It will be how much they like being there that decides whether they part with their disposable cash in exchange

Aneta Cichla
Feature

Elevation revelation

As the competition for customers becomes increasingly aggressive, shopping centres are adopting intensive promotional activities. Lighting up mall elevations has become an important weapon in this battle

Rafał Ostrowski
Investment & finance

Silesian German

September saw the closing of the EUR 400 mln acquisition of Silesia City Center – the largest single asset acquisition in the CEE region this year. The Katowice shopping complex, with a leasable area of 85,000 sqm, was sold by Immofinanz to a consortium led by German investor Allianz Real Estate, which now has a 45 pct stake in the property. In the last twelve months the company has also closed its transaction to buy the Warsaw Financial Center (a EUR 210 mln deal in which it has an 87.5 pct interest), as well as its EUR 173 mln purchase of Platinium Business Park in the same city. Stefan Brendgen, the CEO of Allianz Real Estate Germany, spoke to us about these deals and the company’s future investment plans

Nathan North
Construction

Made to measure

Walls never are perfectly smooth; floors are also never true; while any two walls that meet are never at exact right angles. And yet, this tends not to be the main bone of contention between developers and tenants

Zuzanna Wiak
Eurobuild Awards

Outshining the competitors

The fourth Eurobuild Awards gala is now fast approaching. Nineteen visions will be competing this year for the title of Architectural Design of the Year

RG
Events

Kings and pretenders

What would be a warehouse specialist’s object of desire? A nice little place in the Wrocław region, leased for a long period of time to a logistics company or possibly a tenant involved in light production – or so it would seem, going by the evidence of the latest Eurobuild conference devoted to the sector

And
Events

Good vibrations

Lots of meetings, crowds of visitors (although admittedly smaller than a year ago) and plenty of positive vibes. This is what this year’s – the sixteenth already – Expo Real fair in Munich was all about

Radosław Górecki
Events

Searching for the ideal

What characteristics would the ideal shopping centre have? How can we even approach this kind of perfection? And is there anything that we could call ideal at all? This is what developers, tenants and investors operating in Russia were trying to answer at the meeting

Radosław Górecki
Endpiece

More than just moonshine

The world is not enough, but it is an excellent place to start – as Shirley Manson of Garbage used to sing. Retail developers have already made a start here on Earth. Now the time has come for them to conquer space

Aneta Cichla

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