TheWrap: Buying, not selling

There’s no let-up to the supply of new retail parks, according to new figures. Last year saw the construction of 82,400 sqm of space, according to Cushman & Wakefield. That was a record, but it won’t last long, since 90,000 sqm of new retail park GLA is scheduled to come on-line in 2026. In fact, the segment now accounts for a third of all modern Czech retail at 1.4 million sqm. It’s part of a structural shift from regional shopping centers to more convenient parks in towns of 10,000–25,000 people. The formula is predictable, and apparently repeatable: grocers, drugstores, and discounters cluster around car-accessible boxes. Saller leads ownership according to C&W at 16% of total stock, while Intercora comes in at 13%.

At the recent ARTN macro panel, Czech economists warned tensions over the US’s war with Iran are heightening the likelihood of stagflation. Higher energy prices and renewed supply chain friction could add entire percentage points of inflation to our lives. Petr Dufek (Banka CREDITAS) said inflation could return above 3% next year in the baseline case. The housing picture is bleaker still: median incomes no longer cover a standard apartment without financial strain, and the price-to-income gap keeps widening. Theoretically, more construction could help bring resi inflation under control. But with inflation bleeding into the prices for construction materials, good luck with that. Jaromír Šindel (Czech Banking Association) noted that residential property is increasingly profiling as an investment asset rather than shelter.

Speaking of which...UniCredit Bank signed on as banking partner for Vila ROQUE, a six-unit boutique villa house in Prague 6 Břevnov between Ladronka and Břevnov Monastery, with units running 150–260 sqm. The developer All New Development plans to complete construction by Q4 2027. UniCredit will offer buyers combined mortgage-and-investment financing, a dedicated senior banker, and full private banking onboarding.

Zeitraum crossed into Slovakia as operator of Lucron's 300-unit rental project in Bratislava's Nesto quarter. It’s being touted as the country's first institutional-scale managed rental housing scheme. Construction broke ground in March 2026. Only 8–10% of Slovaks rent at all, but over a fifth of Bratislava's population is aged 25–39. Zeitraum, one assumes, knows its demographic. It already runs 2,000+ beds across Prague, Kraków, and Warsaw. With the Bratislava deal done, it’s now looking at Swiss expansion.

Kuehne+Nagel took delivery of a 10,500 sqm BTS hall at Panattoni Business Park Prague Airport II near Pavlov. Accolade is the investor behind the project. It’s been built for contract logistics warehousing. This is the kind of high-spec, single-tenant facility that’s come to dominate airport-adjacent supply. The nearly 140,000 sqm park’s location on the D6 motorway is 15 minutes from the airport and 10 from Prague, potentially close enough for last-mile operations.

It will surprise no one that Czech mortgage rates plateaued in April, matching the 4.54% achieved in March. In truth, it may have nothing to do with the war, since the index had been inching down by single basis points since last October. But go back to previous Aprils for the bigger picture: 4.72% in April 2025, 5.25% in April 2024. Looking forward, get ready for rates to rise: most lenders have already bumped rates by tenths of a percent across shorter and five-year fixations. The Czech National Bank claims no regulatory action is planned.

“How much office space do we actually need?” That’s the question iO Partners says its new space planning tool can answer in less than a minute. iO4Workplace is a proprietary tool that proports to convert three decades of workplace data into a five-question diagnostic. Along with a sqm count, clients should get immediate feedback on the cost implications of their choices. iO Partners says companies need to reconsider everything, since 40% of office space sits unused on any given workday and global utilization averages just 54%. The tool launches under iO Tech, the firm's digital consultancy platform.

Passerinvest ran a full EU Taxonomy assessment with EY across Brumlovka and Nové Roztyly and came back with 92% compliance to climate-adaptation criteria. The remaining 8% is a single building that’s scheduled for renovation. Passerinvest’s goal is to ensure green-finance access and tenant stickiness. Compliance is of course baked into its pipeline of projects: Hila, Sequoia, Orion, Omega and Arboretum.

IKONIX broke ground on V.L.N.Y. Modřany, a 35-unit residential project in Prague 12. It’s being built for the investor VAV EC with completion targeted for the end of 2027. Layouts start at 25 sqm, but more spacious 102 sqm units will also be on offer. The GC is Casta. IKONIX isn’t a household name yet, but it currently has 426 resi units across nine projects in preparation. The group also has an energy division, which is developing 60 MW of battery storage across five sites.

Logicor hired Milan Růžička (ex-Colliers/JLL) as Asset Manager and brought Simona Štotová from its Luxembourg office to Prague as analyst. The developer’s Czech logistics portfolio now exceeds 100,000 sqm, including Logicor Prague–Průmyslová (21,000 sqm, last-mile) and Příšovice, a brownfield conversion.

PSN launched Chrudimská 99 in Pardubice, a nine-unit reconstruction of a courtyard apartment building in Zelené Předměstí. The scale is miniature but the signal is directional: PSN sees regional micro-projects as viable alongside its headline schemes like Koh-i-noor Vršovice, or the former Transgas site it’s developing with Penta.