Some like it hot

Czech commercial property investment jumped 137% in 2025. That was the biggest jump anywhere in Europe, reckons Savills, ahead even of Finland (96%) and Hungary (79%). By comparison, 2026’s first six months are looking soft — €752 million against €2.138 billion a year earlier — but that's a base effect. But Savills figures 2025 was something of a freak year topped off by the €700m-plus Palladium sale. What’s encouraging is that international money appears to be returning, with Israeli and Italian sources (17% and 16% respectively) chipping away at domestic capital's dominance. Savills pencils in up to €3.3 billion for this year. Last year, Prague on its own produced €3.1 billion in deals.

Generali and SCF have picked up six Polish retail parks for nearly €110 million, their second joint deal in short order. The portfolio adds 70,000 sqm of leasable space anchored by Lidl, Aldi and Biedronka. The vendors were Patron Capital and Trei Real Estate. SCF's 20% slice goes into its new SCF CROP subfund. Generali Fond realit now holds 31 assets worth nearly CZK 10 billion at close to full occupancy.

Luxent Fund SICAV picked up two apartment buildings on Na Bojišti street in Prague 2, totaling roughly 1,711 sqm. The first gets a full reconstruction into 16 flats and six studios plus an attic conversion. Management plans to sell the building on towards the end of 2028. That’s right in line with the fund’s goal of buying, improving and selling on assets. Luxent raised around CZK 140 million in its first year of existence. It hopes to make up to four of these value-add plays annually and targets annualized returns of more than 15%.

EQT Real Estate completed Park Prague North on the D8, landing the occupancy permit on 56,500 sqm of logistics and light-manufacturing space. The brownfield scheme in Lužec nad Vltavou, built with 7R, splits into halls of 44,900 and 11,600 sqm. It's EQT's third Czech park after Mošnov and Nošovice, lifting its local logistics footprint past 360,000 sqm. 7R rebuilt the I/16 junction to serve a catchment of nearly 3 million people. Now comes the leasing part.

Passerinvest poured the foundation slab for Sequoia, the 33,000 sqm office building anchoring its Nové Roztyly redevelopment in Prague 11. The 5,800 sqm of slab will need 4,500 cubic meters of concrete. GEMO is the general contractor for the work, which is set for the first half of 2028. It’s not generally known that Roztyly Plaza is actually a brownfield conversion as it sits atop the former grounds of the Interlov slaughterhouse.

Prologis leased roughly 2,200 sqm at Prague-Rudná to BattSwap, a Czech startup building robotic battery-swap stations for electric delivery fleets. It’s a cool shipping container-sized device that swaps out depleted vehicle batteries for full ones in under three minutes. That’s not just quicker than charging the original battery – it’s cheaper, since they can be charged when rates are cheaper. Prologis likes pointing out that it’s leasing to tech companies, not just helping shift pallets around. Prague-Rudná now encompasses 20 buildings offering more than 254,000 sqm of space along the D5.

DRFG paid nearly CZK 1.25 billion for Lumini, a fully-let, 25,800 sqm shopping center near Varaždin in Croatia. Tenants include Konzum, H&M, C&A and CineStar. DRFG boss claims the asset will produce 8-10% returns – in other words, cheaper than he could find in Czechia. Financing of around 65% was secured. It’s DRFG’s second Croatian acquisition. Next up could be Italy.

Accolade and Panattoni broke ground on Business Park Prague I, replacing the demolished Kovošrot scrapyard in Prague 15's Průmyslová street with four halls on a 140,000 sqm site. Phase one — three halls totaling 44,800 sqm, costing about CZK 2 billion — completes in February 2027, with pharma taking the first space and e-commerce and light manufacturing the rest.

Have Czech politicians actually realized that snail-paced permitting leads to housing crises? An amendment making its way through Parliament makes it possible to declare large residential schemes to be in the public interest (and thus eligible for fast tracking). It would also centralize the country’s hundreds of local building offices into a single state authority, while allowing regional cities to take control of their own building codes, just like Prague. Finally, there’s a push to increase property taxes on empty flats and to speed up the approval process for smaller residential apartment projects.

Czech Inn Hotels has acquired the 150-room four-star Iris Hotel Eden inside Slavia Prague's Eden Arena. It reportedly paid Raiffeisen Bank between CZK 750 million and CZK 800 million for the facility, which Czech Inn Hotels had managed since 2015. Czech Inn is the country's largest hotel group with 29 hotels and nearly 10,000 beds.