As far as Poland’s commercial real estate market is concerned, the industrial and logistics sector proved to show the most resilience to the negative impact of the global pandemic. Gross take-up, not taking into account short-term leases, reached nearly 5.24 million sqm, which is a record-breaking result for the sector. In turn, as regards new leases and expansions, the year ended with a result of 3.6 million sqm, which is a figure nearly 30% higher than that recorded in 2019. This placed Poland amongst the top most active industrial and logistics markets across Europe. The sustained good availability of land, as compared to other countries, and Poland’s constantly improving road infrastructure represent only some of the strengths valued by tenants and developers alike
Igor Roguski, Head of Industrial and Logistics Department, Central and Eastern Europe, BNP Paribas Real Estate Poland
Optimization and improvements in respect of warehouse logistics, as well as further restructure of existing supply chains will prove to be the key to success for industrial and logistics tenants in the coming quarters. Digitization, automation and robotization of warehouse processes will continue to grow in importance. Additionally, demand from the e-commerce industry will remain the main driver for sustained developer activity, while technological advancement and increasing environmental awareness will mean that operation of newly developed industrial and logistics facilities will become more efficient and cost-effective. Interestingly, there is also growing demand from data centre operators noticeable on the market now. The fact that an increasing number of global companies are investing in the Polish “data centre” market is a good sign for the future
Wojciech Nowicki, Associate Director, Industrial and Logistics Department, BNP Paribas Real Estate Poland