Filling up on the CBD's doorstep

When Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogniczne, the school publications' leader in Poland, signed a leasing contract for 5,032 sqm at Eurocentrum's Alpha Building in early October, it was claimed as the biggest deal this year on the Warsaw market. It also takes WSiP from the heart of the CBD, to where Al. Jerozolimskie leaves the commercial hub some way behind.

"This part of the city is going to be Warsaw's second centre," argues Eftal Köklü, Project Development Coordinator of Eurocentrum, the five-building office and hotel project planned for the stretch of Al. Jerozolimskie between Pl. Zawiszy and Zachodnia train station. The Alpha office building, is the first to have been constructed and is due to become fully operable around December this year. As well as anchor tenant WSiP, who signed for just under half of the building's space of 12,500 sqm., the deals being negotiated at the moment should bring an interesting range of tenants to the building.

Panorama
WSiP Board Member Jarosław Kusto, whose firm is for now working from offices in Plac Dombrowskiego 8 and Pankiewicza 3, said that the Alpha Building attracted them primarily because of its architecture, which departs from the norm of a "regular quadrangle with narrow corridors".  On the upper floors of  the octangular building, the body-length windows which surround display a giddying panorama of apartment blocks at the front or a more forlorn view, dominated by the railway track heading towards Zachodni station, to the rear. Neither spectacle is exactly inspiring, but within the eight walls, a freedom of movement and democratic flow of information is suggested.
Traffic
Not much about how you get to Eurocentrum gladdens the heart however. Al. Jerozolimskie may course through the city, connecting Warsaw's citizens at several vital points, but it is a grim journey. There are plenty of growling vehicles going up and down, and in theory you can get to the airport in fifteen minutes from Eurocentrum, but in practice as regular commuters know, traffic more often grinds to a halt. Which is why, in GVA Immoconsult's Jerzy Nemling's opinion, "it'll never be a hot spot" for office development.  He also doesn't see what would attract tenants to any skyline consisting of, "residential buildings from the seventies, and people's underwear drying on balconies".

Competitive rents
Eftal Köklü maintains however that Eurocentrum's location, neither in nor really out of the CBD, is one reason why it can negotiate competitive rents. At USD 18-20 sqm, "we're not charging high rents as they do in the CBD but neither are they as low as in the outer-lying districts".