Poland The golden age of warehousing

The warehouse and logistics sector has been the brightest star of the Polish commercial real estate market over the past 15 years. By 2010, it comprised only around 7 mln sqm, but in the 2010s, new warehouse parks sprang up like mushrooms after the rain. By 2008, the warehouse sector had already overtaken the retail sector in terms of existing stock, and ten years later, it had left the office sector behind.

To better illustrate the rise of this industry's development, the following example can be used. Nearly 29 mln Poles were eligible to vote in the last presidential election. Over the past 15 years, warehouse developers have built and leased exactly the same number of square meters of modern warehouse space – 29 mln. Together with older facilities, this translates to approximately 36 mln sqm. This means that for every adult Pole, there is now nearly 1.25 sqm of modern warehouse space.
Mateusz Polkowski, head of research & consultancy – Poland & CEE at JLL

If you could say that someone has benefited from the Covid-19 pandemic, it would be the Polish warehouse and logistics real estate market. Coronavirus restrictions led to a significant shift of trade online, which, after 2020, led to a surge in demand for all types of warehouses – regional distribution centres, cross-dock transhipment centres, and urban warehouses located near or within large metropolitan areas, enabling rapid delivery via so-called last-mile logistics. Other new formats were also developed, such as centres with SBUs.

Although we now know that e-commerce is not growing as rapidly as was expected immediately after the pandemic, there have been no shortage of other developmental boosts for the warehousing market. The pandemic and the dramatic increases in sea freight prices that soon followed disrupted many supply chains connecting Europe, Asia, and North America. To avoid such disruptions, many companies decided to relocate some production through nearshoring. Poland, due to its lower labour costs and lease rates for industrial and warehouse space that remained attractive compared to Western Europe, has been one of the main beneficiaries of this process. The confusion surrounding the new tariffs imposed by the US on the world can be expected to intensify this process.
Mateusz Polkowski

In 2025, Poland is becoming Europe's warehousing hub. JLL points out that Poland benefits from a privileged location – the country's most important communication and transport routes intersect on the east-west and north-south axes. Within eight hours, a truck leaving Wrocław can reach Warsaw, Vienna, Bratislava, Prague, Berlin, and central Germany, as well as the deep-sea ports in Szczecin and Gdańsk. Over the past 15 years, the road network has expanded significantly – in 2015, Poland had only 3,000 km of expressways and motorways; today, this has grown to 5,200 km, and after the completion of the road construction planned for the eastern half of the country, this figure is expected to reach 8,000. Airports and seaports have been expanded – Gdańsk's Baltic Hub is considered the largest container terminal in the southern Baltic Sea. The availability of land for new warehouse projects and the lower costs of employing skilled labour than in the West are also attractive to investors.

Of course, the size of the domestic market is also important – Poland is the fifth most populous EU country, and the economy is still growing at a very good pace compared to other EU countries. According to Oxford Economics, economic growth in Poland will reach 3.3 pct in 2025, and 3.8 pct in 2026. These figures significantly exceed the estimates for the eurozone, which are 1.1% and 1.5 pct, respectively. Therefore, barring unforeseen geopolitical events, the Polish warehouse sector should maintain stable growth. Currently, a slowdown in new demand, can be seen and the number of renegotiations is also increasing. JLL also expects developers to limit purely speculative development, meaning those not secured by lease agreements. Time will tell whether they will focus on BTS, BTO, or other new formats. There is certainly room to build. Accoridng to our data, developers have secured land, on which a further 20 mln sqm of warehouse space could be built.
Mateusz Polkowski