City of mills is born again

Łódź is an excellent place for office investment, according to a report by Jones Lang LaSalle and Łódź city council

On October 16th, the ballroom of the Robert Biedermann palace, once the property of a Łódź factory owner, hosted Polish representatives of the leading property agencies, including Cushman & Wakefield, Ernst & Young, Knight Frank, Ober-Haus, Colliers, Savills, King Sturge, CB Richard Ellis, DTZ Deloitte, A.T. Kearney, PwC, McKinsey, Boston Consulting and Baker & McKenzie at a conference organized by Virako. This conference was supported by ‘Eurobuild CEE’ and entitled: ‘A Square Metre of the Promised Land’ – a reference to Rejmont’s novel ‘The Promised Land’ set in 19th century Łódź and the subsequent Andrzej Wajda film adaptation.

The meeting opened with a presentation of the first joint report by Łódź city council and Jones Lang LaSalle on the Łódź real estate market. According to Bartosz Mierzwiak of Jones Lang LaSalle, Łódź has been suffering from a lack of modern office buildings but this is now very rapidly changing. He stressed that: “As a succession of increasingly modern properties are completed, so the interest in purchasing them grows.” Virako’s Forum 76 investment being built on the corner of ul. Piłsudskiego and al. Rydza-Śmigłego, GTC’s University Business Park, the Aurus building owned by Echo Development of Kielce, Cross Point of Mermaid Properties and Textorial Park being built by St. Paul’s Development, all reveal the extent to which the landscape of the former textile power is changing. Estimates suggest that modern office buildings with a total area of 34,000 sqm will be delivered this year alone, with more to appear in 2009 and 2010.

Krzysztof Witkowski, the president of Virako, believes that: “Łódź is experiencing a second youth. The real estate market is a barometer of the state of the city’s economy. New projects are springing up. Modern apartments and offices are being developed. Office buildings are attracting international consortiums to locate their local offices here. I sincerely hope Łódź will again one day become a promised land.”

Marek Michalik, Łódź’s deputy mayor and the man responsible for local investment, delivered some good news to the conference – that the Civil Aviation Office has given its consent for the construction of office buildings as high as 200 metres above sea level in the very heart of the city!

The conference concluded with a tour of the city’s most interesting properties – both those recalling the days of the industrial revolution and those of the present day, with the distinctive red brick of the old buildings alongside modern steel and glass. ν