Marynarska Point sold in Warsaw

Skanska has sold Marynarska Point to the Luxembourg based fund Investec GLL for roughly SEK 50m. The 26,000 sqm building is fully leased to companies like Generali, DnB Nord and ACNielsen. The building is an accredited GreenBuilding, with 31% lower energy requirements than required under Polish standards.

European Property Sicav reopens

Aviva Investors has reopened its fund, European Property Sicav more than a year after it closed it from dealing. Aviva had cited a lack of liquidity and an attempt to protect its clients from further losses.

Aviva Investors has reopened its €249.5 European Property Sicav, more than 13 months after it suspended dealing in the fund. Company officials said that the improving economic environment had made it possible to open the fund for business.

TriGranit gets railway job in Poznań

Polish State Railways (PKP) is nearing the end of talks with Hungarian developer TriGranit about an overhaul of the train station in the western Polish city of Poznań.

According to PKP, details of the final deal with TriGranit are now being finalized and the developer will start working on the new Poznań rail station in 2010 as planned.  Worth hundreds of millions of Polish złoty, the deal will require TriGranit to upgrade the city’s typical railway station into a modern city communication hub, integrating rail, tram and bus lines. TriGranit will make money after completing the work by developing office and residential space.

PKP’s choice of TriGranit ends a tender process that began back in 2008.

Hochtief and Metrostav to extend Prague metro

Aktualne.cz has just reported that Hochtief and Metrostav have won a CZK 18bn tender to extend the Prague A line metro from Dejvice to Motol, the huge hospital out towards Zlicin. The decision was apparently made a couple weeks ago, but has only leaked out now — a minor miracle in this market where everyone knows just about everything in a matter of hours. It’s good news for the contractors, of course, but it will create a whole new swathe of commercially interesting land to build on. Anyone with options to that land has just made some money. Here’s a picture of the route. Yes, the picture shows the metro going all the way out to the airport, but that won’t be happening anytime soon.

Corvin Offices 75% let

Hungarian developer Futureal recently announced the latest tenant at the second phase of its Corvin Offices project in Budapest’s District VIII, a deal long talked about but until now kept under wraps.

Starting next month, Garantiqa Hitelgarancia will take up 3,200 sqm, or one tower, in the 24,000 sqm project in a five-year lease. The company joins printing company Ringier Hungary, which is taking up more than 6,800 sqm, and an unnamed healthcare company taking up a third tower. This latest leasing brings occupancy to 75 percent. Rent details weren’t made available.

Leasing on the fourth and final building is progressing, though project director János Berki says the remaining 6,800 sqm of space will be let out floor by floor, rather than in one shot. Each floor varies between 1,400 sqm and 1,800 sqm in size.

Winners at the CIJ Romanian Awards

They may be the newest awards on the CIJ Awards circuit, but the Romanian awards are definitely the fastest growing. With nearly 240 people present at the end of what was an extremely tough year for the country, new blood and new ideas proved to be the difference, as the jury seemed intent on rewarding fresh thinking. We’ll have pictures up soon from the evening, so for now, we bring you the names of the winning projects and companies.

Best Residential development: NewTown (Mivan)
Best Office development: Victoria Center
Best Shopping Center: AFI Palace Cotroceni
Best Industrial/Warehouse: A1 Business Park – Cefin / Valad
Best Overall development: Afi Palace Cotroceni  (Afi Europe)
Developer of the Year: GTC
Architecture firm of the Year: Westfourth
Best Law Firm: PeliFilip
Personality of the Year: Troy Javaher (JLL)
Real Estate Agency of the Year: The Advisers / Knight Frank

DTZ gets the Ballymore job in Bratislava

They may not have won Best Property Management Team for Slovakia at last night’s awards, but DTZ has reportedly won the contract to manage Ballymore’s Eurovea scheme in Bratislava. That’s the kind of news that keeps people in jobs for a year or two. More information on this as we get it….

UPDATE: According to Lenka Pohlodková, PR and marketing manager for DTZ, a special team will be created to handle the scheme, based in the agency’s Bratislava office. The team will be led by Garvo Lars-Gunnar from DTZ’s Malmö office in Sweden, and Martin Kubík, director of property and asset management, will coordinate activity and letting from Prague. The tender for the job was launched in the summer.

CIJ Awards Slovakia

The Cushman & Wakefield team in Bratislava

The third annual CIJ Awards in Slovakia took place last night in Bratislava, and they weren’t without their surprises. Among the most pleasant was the strong size of the crowd that gathered to find out who would collect the spoils.

For those that missed it, here are some pictures, and here are the winners:

Best office Development: Digital Park Einsteinova, Phase II (Penta Investments)
Best Residential Development: III Towers (Quinlan Private Golub / Cresco)
Best Shopping Center Development: Galeria Mlyny (Mlyny)
Best Warehouse / Logistics Development: PointPark Bratislava (PointPark Properties)
Best Hotel Development: Grand Hotel Kempinski High Tatras (J&T)
Best Overall Development: Grand Hotel Kempinski High Tatras (J&T)
Law Firm of the Year: Squire Sanders
Property Management Team of the Year: Cushman & Wakefield
Developer of the Year: CSIA
Personality of the Year: Jozef Oravkin (Penta Investments)
Best Real Estate Agency of the Year: Cushman & Wakefield

CBRE: European drop in office values

Here’s a rather remarkable stat from a fascinating piece of research by CB Richard Ellis. Comments, please.

Short list for Komercni banka being set

Recent tenders for buildings for Czech financial institution tend to be held in a very professional, hush-hush sort of way, meaning that little to no official information gets out. But unofficial information does of course escape.

With that in mind, we hear that the tug of war for Komercni banka’s back office building is chugging along, right on schedule. A short list of three was due to be set in November, and we have it from a usually reliable source that they are: Finep’s City West scheme, CODECO’s building in Vysocanska, and finally (we’re less sure about this one) Crestyl’s Docks in Liben.

As we wrote in November, one of the bank’s main requirements is that the new building be located along the B line metro and it’s thought to need around 15,000 sqm by 2012.

Update: So now we’re hearing that this short list isn’t necessarily the finished article. Red Group is potentially still in the race (Jinonice) while even Hochtief is thought to have a fighting chance out in Letnany. The Komercni board isn’t meeting until January, so it’s by no means the final word, says one source. Please keep the emails coming with your input!

Update2: Those last two we mentioned in the update were just confirmed as still in the running by another independent source. Looks like this story has legs…