POLAND With parks under construction, completed projects and investment deals – Panattoni Europe again has its hands full. The latest large-scale project that the company has announced is Panattoni Park Gdańsk Airport, which is to comprise almost 107,000 sqm gla in four warehouse buildings. Already the first lease has been signed with BBK which will take up 68,500 sqm for its Home & You store chain. Construction work is to start before the end of the year and be completed in mid-2020. The tenant was advised by Colliers International. “An airport always contributes to the development of its surrounding area. Because of the well-developed transport links nearby, industrial, and warehouse as well as office and retail projects are springing up in the area as part of an airport city development,” says Marek Dobrzycki, the managing director of Panattoni Europe.
Projects in Warsaw and Łódź
The company has also announced that it will develop 25,000 sqm of space at City Logistics Warsaw III. The park will be next to the Warsaw ring road and the first tenant is to be beauty product retailer Trena, which has leased 9,000 sqm, including 2,000 sqm of office and social space. The tenant is to move in in May 2020. According to Marek Dobrzycki, “City-based warehouses are no longer a trend and have become a genuine need that is recognised worldwide. This has been brought about by the rapid growth in e-commerce, as well as by urbanisation with the gradual shift of the population from rural to urban areas”. City Logistics Warsaw III comprises two modern buildings totalling 25,000 sqm of space, with minimum units of 1,200 sqm. With flexible unit layout options, the space will be suitable for warehousing, sorting and packaging operations. The project will be delivered within the city’s limits, on ul. Przyparkowa, 800m from the “Warszawa Zachód” junction of the S8 expressway, which connects with national road no 92. The centre is to be BREEAM certified.
Additionally, a 12,000 sqm project is under development for foam packaging manufacturer Sealed Air in Panattoni Business Center Łódź III. Production is to start by the end of November with the developer currently converting existing space to meet the tenant’s needs. The space is to be divided into three zones for manufacturing, packaging and warehousing and together they will total 11,500 sqm. Additionally the lease includes 536 sqm of office space. The roofing is to be strengthened so that extra sky lights can be installed to provide more natural light. The tenant signed its contract in April this year and the new plant will be Sealed Air’s third manufacturing plant in Poland. Its other two factories are a food packaging plant and an industrial packaging plant both located in Ożarów Mazowiecki near Warsaw. Sealed Air is now present in 123 countries and employs more than 15,500 workers in 100 centres around the world. The company has been operating in Poland for 27 years.
Some work now done
Panattoni Europe has completed nearly 17,000 sqm for DHL Parcel Polska in two centres in the Warsaw region. The tenant has leased 8,400 sqm in Panattoni Park Pruszków III and 8,400 sqm of BTS space in Radzymin. Both centres are BREEAM certified. Each centre also includes 900 sqm of office space. The centre at Panattoni Park Pruszków III can process up to 7,500 parcels per hour, which means it can handle up to 2,250,000 per month. “These centres are our response to the enormous growth in e-commerce. The growing popularity of online shopping is increasing the demand for new distribution centres from key providers of courier delivery services, such as DHL Parcel Polska,” says Marek Dobrzycki.
Shed-loads sold
A joint-venture of Panattoni Europe and Marvipol has sold the Panattoni Park Warsaw VII warehouse park for EUR 27.5 mln to Aberdeen Standard Investments. The investment provides a net initial yield of 5.64 pct. The logistics centre comprises two warehouses in the village of Moszna Parcele totalling 24,626 sqm including 1,959 sqm of office space, with one building containing cross-docking facilities. The site is predominantly pre-leased with an average lease length of eight years. The main tenant is DHL. Other tenants include ICS Polska and Spedimex. Advanced negotiations are underway regarding the lease of the remaining space, currently covered by a 5-year rental guarantee. Another Panattoni joint venture, this time with Bluehouse Capital, has sold an 8,500 sqm logistics centre in Radzymin (30 km from Warsaw’s city centre) to Oxenwood Real Estate. The development was delivered in November 2018 as a build-to-suit courier distribution centre for DHL Parcel Polska. The value of the transaction came to EUR 13.5 mln. The acquisition is the third completed outside the UK by Oxenwood over the last 18 months and follows the purchase of five centres in Germany and one in Dublin. All are occupied by subsidiaries of DHL. The deal also represents the debut of the investor in Poland. “This transaction was a high-quality opportunity to acquire a newly-built cross docking facility in the primary logistics market of Poland and to extend our relationship with DHL,” commented Jeremy Bishop, the co-founder of Oxenwood.
