Poland Warehouse market picking up

According to CBRE, the Polish warehouse market is on the path to recovery in 2012, based on Q1 2012 new deliveries volume of 215,000 m², which totals 60% of all 2011 completions. The entire warehouse stock in Poland now amounts to nearly 7.2 million m². In Q1 2012 completions reached about 215,000 m² of new warehouse space, which is approximately 60% of completions for the entire 2011.

“We can see the Polish warehouse and logistics market gradually picking up following weaker 2010 and 2011. This is due to Poland’s strong underlying fundamentals with GDP growth of 4.3% in 2011 and a forecasted 2.6% in 2012. Also, intense infrastructure investment prior to the UEFA CUP 2012 has had a positive side effect of creating many new locations desired by warehouse developers”, said Patrick Kurowski, Director, Industrial & Logistics at CBRE Poland.

Limited new supply in 2010 and 2011 had a positive impact on the vacancy rate. The market has slowly started to absorb vacant space, but with over 0.8 million m² ready to be leased (about 11.4%), it will be a gradual process. Out of the total 228,600 m² new space under construction, about 70% (ca. 156,000 m²) has been preleased. In the future, CBRE does not expect vacancy rates to increase significantly in Poland. In 2012-2013, the current vacant space should gradually become occupied.

The supply of modern industrial properties in Poland is controlled by a limited number of developers. The largest are Prologis, Panattoni and Segro. There are also a few newcomers, like Point Park Properties and Goodman, who have already started their operations in Poland.

Leasing activity growing
The total leasing activity in Q1 2012 amounted to about 478,000 m², which is a 10% increase in comparison to the previous quarter, and over twice the amount of space newly delivered in the same quarter. In terms of the take-up structure in Q1 2012, the share of new deals amounted to over 68%, renegotiations to about 25%, while expansions attained 7% of total leasing activity.

One of the largest new leasing deals was the contract signed recently (April ’12) for 33,800 m² at Prologis Park Dąbrowa with DHL Exel Supply Chain, part of the world's leading mail and logistics group. Prologis Park Dąbrowa is a modern distribution centre consisting of ten warehouses and office buildings totalling 144,000 m², located in the Silesia region, with excellent road, rail and air connections to southern Poland and neighbouring countries.