Warsaw is the largest and the fastest developing office market in Poland. In Q1 2013, 76,200 sq m were added to the office market. According to Warsaw Research Forum, four new office buildings were put into service, taking the modern office stock to 3,935,250 sq m, 1,287,350 out of which are situated within the Central Business District. Most of the added space is located outside the city centre.
WRF informs about a slight rise of vacancy rates caused by new closed deals. Compared to the previous quarter, it rose by 1 percentage point to 9.8%. In the Central Business District, vacancy rate stands at 9.6%, and 10% in the other districts.
Total transaction volume amounted to 155,500 sq m, which means there has been a slight increase in comparison to the previous quarter.
The largest take-up volume was observed in the upper south region (ca. 63,000 sq m) and on the outskirts of the city centre (ca. 27,500 sq m).
New leases accounted for 57% of all deals, with prelets making up 25% of them (30,200 sq m), and renegotiations – 36%.
The largest deal in Q1 2013 was renegotiation of the lease agreement by BNP Paribas. The bank occupies 11,000 sq m in the office block Trinity Park II. At the beginning of the year, most lease agreements were signed by financial institutions as well as companies from the BPO and IT sectors.
Further growth of the vacancy rates in 2013 will be influenced by the rate of commercialisation of buildings which are currently under construction.