Mateusz Bonca, CEO of JLL in Poland, talks to the BPCC’s Michael Dembinski about the prospects for the real-estate sector in Poland in 2022 and beyond

Magdalena Szulc, managing director, Central Europe, for SEGRO, talks to the BPCC’s Michael Dembinski about the dynamically developing logistics-space sector in Poland, and the factors that are shaping it – green transformation, e-commerce and technology.

 
An overview of the key changes in the construction and real estate market

The past

The Romans gave us the word ‘office’ from the Latin officium and were early adopters of working-from-home (WFH) in rooms called tablinum.

The first purpose-built office buildings arrived in the 18th Century in London and phrases like ‘office furniture’ and ‘office hours’ have been around for over 150 years. The invention of things like steel frame construction, lifts and electrical installations enabled office buildings to get bigger and more open leading to the first skyscraper in 1885 and the first open plan office layout in 1906, both in the U.S.A.

After almost two years of pandemic, the situation in the office market is stabilising and business has learned to operate in the new reality. Stabilisation and economic growth in the region should have a positive impact on Warsaw’s office market.

The implementation of ESG (environment/society/governance) solutions was popularised by the Paris Agreement in 2015 and UN Sustainable Development Goals, a programme of activities supporting sustainable development globally. Investors are increasingly applying these non-financial factors while analysing opportunities and risks.

Over the past two years, the pandemic has turned our world upside down in so many ways. It put us all in face of almost endless uncertainties, questions, reassessments. It made everyone – at personal and professional level – look once again at the goals we set for ourselves and the paths and strategies we choose to achieve. Sustainability has been the underlying theme in this process: what does it take to live a truly fulfilled and balanced life; what does it take to make our communities, our institutions, our regions and our planet prosper and grow in a manner that does not overburden future generations – with degraded environment, irreversible climate change or the social impacts of economic growth that cares for nothing beyond numbers on individual balance sheets.

 
“What is VUCA?” you ask. It used to be an obscure acronym, first used in 1987 by the US military to describe the new, post-Cold War, multipolar geopolitical reality. Today it’s a trendy term used by the corporate world to describe the reality we live in. Ever since the pandemic broke out, we live in Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous times. What used to be predictable isn’t any longer. Why? Markets (in general) and their sectors such as the construction sector, are multifaceted and can be affected by many different variables such as labour, materials, financing and even so-called acts of God such as wars and pandemics. All of these variables are co-dependent, but when one variable runs amok, in construction for example, investors and general contractors can compensate or accommodate. With the pandemic, we are now witnessing all the variables that affect the construction market running wild. Here is short and simplified rundown of the predicament we find ourselves in today.

A robot with a 3D printing arm is successfully laying down an initial layer of construction clay, tracing a complex pathway across the floor. However, like many a confident tradesperson before it, it suddenly stops. It has found an unexpected obstacle – to continue would involve rolling over the material it has just deposited. The robot pauses a moment, reverses, before relocating to a better position and then continues with its task.

As the world becomes ever more reliant on technology with speed and accuracy, so the need for space to house the support systems that in turn maintain efficiency and the remarkable efficacy of cloud computing increases.

 
Poland has shown strong resilience throughout the pandemic, avoiding some of the economic challenges present in other European locations. The past two years have brought a change to the Polish real-estate market, with growth seen in the residential, logistics – and in particular – the data centre sectors.

The past 24 Covid-dominated months have seen a boom like never before in remote and home-based working. This has effectively made hybrid ways of working the norm for many. But it’s really just an acceleration of a trend that’s been underway for many years, in which firms are redesigning their property strategies. Let’s see, what the shift to hybrid working will mean for business.

Accidents at work are very common in the building sector. Statistically, there are several dozen fatal accidents on construction sites in Poland every year. It is usually a result of negligence of employers and employees and their disregard for health and safety rules and regulations. Unfortunately, this trend continues. Despite implementation of innovative solutions by employers and information campaigns aimed at making employers and construction workers aware of the risks involved, the number of accidents does not decrease year by year.  

 
2022 will be the year we’ll long remember. Many of us expected the world to return to normality at the beginning of 2021. Vaccines were starting to roll out, and many executives felt like it would be a matter of a few months before we would all return to the workplace to fully enjoy the friendly kitchen chats and more effective face-to-face solutions to business challenges.

 
Last autumn, Poland’s president signed a package of laws implementing the government's Polish Deal programme. The focus of the programme is the Act of 27 October 2021 amending the Act on Personal Income Tax, the Act on Corporate Income Tax, as well as certain other acts. This programme was intended to streamline the tax system and improve the financial situation of the less well-off by, among other things, raising the tax-free amount to 30,000 złotys. At the same time, the tax burden was increased through an increase in the health contribution.

 
In the previous issue, we presented several tax changes arising from Polski Ład (the Polish Deal). This article discusses important changes from the perspective of financing property development.

For the past 12 months, the Polish construction market witnessed significant increases in the cost of building materials and labour. The present situation is comparable only to 2010-2012, when projects connected with the Euro 2012 football championship and large-scale infrastructure projects cumulated, creating a pricing bubble. This increase came unexpectedly and is a result of overlap of multiple internal and external factors.

After less than a decade of existence of the act governing the rules of implementation of residential investments, popularly known as the Developers Act, the Polish lawmakers decided to change the regulations in force and passed a new law in this regard. Discussions and works on the new act have continued for a couple of years with an aim to improve legal protection of buyers of residential units and single-family houses.

Wille Tercja Complex references the architectural heritage of Konstancin. The town dates back to the late 19th century, when Count Potulicki and his family decided to create a garden city in a charming forested area, just south of Warsaw. The next owner, Count Witold Skórzewski, named the village after his mother Constance (Konstancja).

Modern infrastructure is important for the effective operation of small and medium-sized businesses, and medium-sized towns, of which there are over 255 in Poland, need new strategies and ideas for growth and expansion. In 2018, Agencja Rozwoju Przemysłu (ARP S.A., Industrial Development Agency, which has been supporting Polish businesses for over 30 years) launched its Fabryka (‘factory’) programme. This article presents a case study from the programme, the Urbi Ferro office building project in Stalowa Wola. Construction began in January; it is due to be completed by the end of the second quarter of 2023.

 
What does green building mean? Is it the same as sustainable building? To really understand this, let’s go back to the beginning…