TPP: And the demand for office space?

NY: In offices, the demand is probably perceived to be less. But if you look at the numbers, the same number of square meters is probably being leased today as it was in 1994. It seems to be always hanging around 130,000 square meters per annum. Most of the [established] companies seem to have found their home. But there are always new companies coming into the market, and there's always rationalization among existing companies. So demand is always being created. The competition between the agents is much stronger today. There's also a bigger and bigger demand for logistic centers on the industrial side.

TPP: And yet everyone seems to be talking about saturation.

NY: There's only saturation at a certain point in time. It's a moving target. At the moment we are going through a phase where there's a good supply of offices, because developers have taken the risk to build speculatively. Because of this, rents have tended to drop and landlords have been obliged to make efforts on behalf of the tenants in order to encourage them to come to their building. And this is a trend that will continue until such time as the existing supply is taken up.

TPP: How do you envision the Prague real estate market five years from now?

NY: It's going to become more sophisticated, more mature. The developments will become more difficult to get off the ground. Acquiring the land will become more difficult, because the best sites near the metro stations have already been taken up. The demand is still going to be there for new space, but finding the product will be more and more difficult. Then I suppose we'll go back and start refurbishing the old ones, modernizing what we've built 10 years previously, such as Pavilon.

TPP: How does the proliferation of shopping centers in the Czech Republic compare to other post-communist countries?

NY: In Poland and Hungary, for instance, there was already a large supply of shopping centers. But some of those didn't work very well because there were too many. The Czech Republic developed the provinces quite rapidly, such as Hradec Kralové, Ostrava and Plzeň, but Prague is still lagging behind. The reason for that is the difficulty of obtaining planning consent for shopping centers in the desired locations. Look at Carrefour in Stodůlky, which was delayed five or six years. It's unfortunate that you've got the Green Party abusing their position to protect frogs in what was actually only a fire pit. That's what happened in Stodůlky, and they used this as a reason to delay the building for two or three years. Other shopping centers have had difficulties, too.

TPP: Aside from political opposition, what other obstacles are there in obtaining building permits?

NY: I believe that there is sometimes delay in giving building consent as a means of deliberately slowing down the proliferation of shopping centers. Prague is a historic town, and areas need to be protected. The city, rightly or wrongly, is slowing down the [development] process, so that not too many shopping centers come onstream at the same time. But in spite of this, I think it's been easier to obtain permits for building shopping centers here than in Western Europe, because the barriers against proliferation weren't there. The only barrier has been the slowness, but the legal mechanism wasn't in place yet.

TPP: Bureaucratic sluggishness aside, what do you like about working in Prague?

NY: I like that I can actually make a difference myself. The machine is so big in Western Europe that you can't really personally influence any of the developments you're working on. You're one of a large team. Here you can assist in creating commercial environments the way you think they should be, and that's great. You're working all the time up on the front line, head-to-head with the architects, with the planners, the retailers, the international community and the Czech community.

TPP: What does it take to be successful in the retail real estate market in the Czech Republic?