PL

Edition 7 (192) July 2014

Editorial

Competition hotting up

The heat is oppressive. The merciless sun is hot enough to melt the asphalt pavements from the communist era. One bonus is that there are more shapely girls and boys to be seen wearing skimpier clothes... but unfortunately, the more obese ones are also stripping off. We are melting at our desks. The air-conditioning has broken down.

EWA ANDRZEJEWSKA
Investment & finance

The time, the place... and a lot of money

Over the eight years of its operations in Poland, Griffin has managed to secure a choice portion of the Polish real estate scene for itself. What is the company planning to invest in in the near future? Where does it see opportunities for development?

Warehouse & industrial

Entering virgin territory

POLAND “Next year I would like to launch two similar projects. I am in negotiations over the purchase of land in the Pomerania, Kuyavia-Pomerania and Warmia-Masuria provinces, as well as Podkarpackie, Lublin and Białystok. The talks should result in at least two projects,” announced Andrzej Rosiński, the president of the board of North-West Logistic Park in Szczecin, during the opening ceremony of halls ‘A’ and ‘B’ of the complex.

Warehouse & industrial

Prologis leases and builds

CEE REGION Prologis has signed six leases for space in the Warsaw region with a combined area exceeding 94,000 sqm. The largest space was leased by Procter & Gamble, which prolonged its contract for 35,000 sqm in Prologis Park Sochaczew

Rafał Ostrowski
Architecture

Glittering façades

POLAND The winners of the seventh Polish Façade of the Year competition have now been decided. At the ceremony in Kraków, the jury selected the four best designs out of the 211 projects entered in the competition by architects, contractors and investors. Austrian building materials manufacturer Baumit is the organiser of the competition.

Stock market report

Impossible upward march

The end of the first half of the year saw little improvement in the situation on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. June was marked by declines, which, combined with the decent end to May, meant that the movement on the indexes was insignificant

Feature

Restructured and re-focused

IVG Poland’s appetite has not been blunted by the recent financial difficulties of its parent group – if anything, it has actually been sharpened. New funds are now being established, ready to spend millions of euros on property in Poland and beyond. We spoke with Maciej Zajdel, the head of the Polish branch of German investor IVG, about the bankruptcy of its mother company, the changes in the structure of the group, new acquisitions and the sales of assets

Feature

A Pole in position

Tomasz Buras is taking the helm of Savills in Poland at an interesting time for the company: the purchase of US agency Studley has just been announced, while in Poland it is celebrating its 10th anniversary. We spoke to the new director about the challenges he will have to face

Retail & leisure

Here today, gone tomorrow?

You appear and you disappear, disappear... these lyrics from a popular Polish hit are only partially apt as a description of pop-up stores in Polish shopping centres. The format has been evolving and more of them are now turning into trial rather than temporary shops

Aneta Cihla
Architecture

Is the pilot flying with us?

An almost two-hour and occasionally heated exchange of views, preceded by presentations of projects completed in Warsaw, concluded with some not very optimistic observations. The general view could be summarised thusly: we are flying on a plane without a pilot. The passengers are trying to get the plane under control, but everyone wants to fly somewhere else. There’s a legal mess, a lack of adequate planning and trust among the parties, and a lawless vacuum – these are just a few of the problems we are faced with on an everyday basis. However, the chance exists to change all this

Tomasz Szpyt
Hotels

Loyalty quality technology

The internet revolution has transformed hotel reservation systems. social media has become a crucial tool in the battle to attract guests from a new generation of tech-savvy customers. and now the focus is on the quality, not the quantity of facilities. we spoke to David Kong, the president and CEO of Best Western International, about the brave new world facing the hospitality sector

Hotels

When MICE are welcome to stay

In 2013 the meetings, incentive, conferences, events (MICE) sector in Poland contributed to a 28 pct occupancy rate in Polish hotels – generating more than PLN 1.6 bln in revenue. The number of business travellers is set to grow – a signal for hoteliers to brace themselves for the fight over such clients

Aneta Cichla
Events

Sense and suspense

For more than ten years players in the real estate sector and their friends have been meeting up as players in another sense at the Eurobuild CEE tournaments. We can be proud once again of the strength of the competition this year

Endpiece

Everything changes

As I am writing these words it is the 25th anniversary of Poland becoming a free country. A helicopter is circling above our office ensuring the safety of Barack Obama, who is staying in the nearby Marriott hotel. Warsaw is in full mobilisation for the G7 summit. It has not been visited by so many heads of states for a long time, so it is rather novel to feel so important in the global scheme of things

Zuzanna Wiak

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