Real Estate Headlines

March 19th, 2008 | Current Issue

ECM's 'city within a city'
Prague development firm plans to transform the capital

Bringing a bit of North American architecture across the Atlantic

Monumental disarray
National Heritage Institute exposes crumbling state buildings

Foreign invasion
International investors snatching up Czech real estate

Simply irresistible
Hotel Josef is a luminous beauty

Decor

BRIEFS COURTESY PHOTO Helika a.s. say its basilica represents one of the greatest projects implemented to date on the African continent by Czech architects. SALE Plaza Centers N.V. announced that it received approximately 381 million euros in consideration for the sale of the Arena Plaza shopping and entertainment centre in Budapest to UK-based Active Asset Investment Management, a commercial property investment groups. With 66,000 square meters of leasable area, Arena Plaza is Hungary’s largest shopping and entertainment center. The Arena Plaza was officially opened last November. AWARD MaMaison Hotels & Apartments’ Riverside Hotel in Prague 5 received a couple of individual awards in the 2008 TripAdvisor’s Travelers’ Choice Award. MaMaison Riverside Hotel was awarded third place in the category “Best Service in Europe” and made the final selection for “Best Luxury Hotels” both globally and in Europe. MaMaison’s Andrassy Hotel in Budapest was also recently chosen as a “Best Value” by Budget Travel Magazine. OFFICES Total office stock in Prague stood at 2,182,000 square meters at the end of 2007, according to a report from DTZ. New completions in 2007 amounted to 161,000 square meters of which 50 percent is located in the outer city, 45 percent in the inner city and 5 percent in the city center. Total new office building output for this year is estimated to reach 250,000 square meters. This is expected to increase even more in 2009 and top 300,000 square meters, the DTZ report shows. TRIANON The new office and shopping center Trianon in Prague 4 has its first tenant, and the building isn’t even finished yet. The company TNS AISA, providing complex services within marketing research, has signed a five-year contract on a 2,700 square meter space. TNS AISA employees will start working there next year. Trianon is going up on the corner of Budějovická street and Vyskočilova street in Prague 4 and will be leasing 18,500 square meters of office spaces. HILTON Hilton Prague was named the best hotel in the Czech Republic by the Travel Trade Gazette. The publication’s travel awards are based on votes of the travel industry professionals and were announced at Gala Award ceremony held in Resort Sváta Kateřina Feb. 9. Hilton Prague was named the Czech Republic’s Leading Hotel in 2007 during the World Travel Awards ceremony. GROWTH More than a quarter of the total volume of modern industrial space in Central Europe was completed last year, according to report by Cushman & Wakefield. Nearly half of the modern industrial space completed last year, approximately 1 million square meters, was in Poland, followed by the Czech Republic with 817,500 square meters. Bringing up the rear was Slovakia at 228,000 square meters and Hungary with 123,000 square meters. INVESTMENT GE Real Estate Europe announced it invested $9.7 billion across Europe in 2007, including $3.9 billion of debt and $5.8 billion of equity investments. This brings the total value of GE Real Estate’s assets in Europe to $22 billion. Key transactions completed during the year included GE Real Estate’s first investments in Russia and Romania and the acquisition of a $4 billion portfolio of commercial property loans from Bradford & Bingley Plc. ACQUISITION The Endurance Real Estate Fund Office Sub-fund, which is managed by Orco Property Group, announced the successful acquisition of Galeria Orkana in Poland. The shopping center Galeria Orkana is 8,000 square meters and is located within the western residential suburbs of Lublin. The center is part of a strong retail destination within the city with neighboring occupiers including Tesco and OBI. RETAIL A new retail park is going up in what developers say will be the most extensive shopping zone in the Liberec region, which is situated in the northwestern part of the city, Liberec–Růžodol. The first phase of the retail park will offer up to 11,000 square meters of retail space with a further 6,000 square meters going up in the second phase. BASILICA Helika a.s. recently signed a contract with the government of Gabon, Central Africa, for preparing an architectural design and building plans for a new basilica. This sacral structure worth some 2 billion Kč should begin to be erected on one of the hills of the capital city of Libreville during the upcoming two years, developers say.