French families keep Saska Kepa rents flying high
While most residential rents in Warsaw have dropped sharply during the past year, one area continues to defy the trend Saska Kepa.
The district, on the east side of the Wisla river, is well known for its leafy, villa-like charm. But Saska Kepa boasts another asset: a French primary-secondary school on ulica Zwyciezcow and a kindergarten on ulica Nobla.
Consequently, Saska Kepa is one of the most popular places for French executives and their families.
"All Francophones, Belgians and Swiss dream about living in Saska Kepa," said Katarzyna Kokosza, an agent with Mansion & House, a local real estate agency. "To inherit a house in Saska Kepa would be the best thing in life (for Poles)," she said.
In response to the demand, Saska Kepa landlords have increased rents, Kokosza said.
As one expatriate member told the Business Journal, a particular landlord, who had charged a Norwegian tenant $2,200 per month for a two-story house during the past two years, hiked that figure to $4,000 a month earlier this summer.
Kokosza said that while the supply of "good-quality" houses in Saska Kepa is limited, the number of interested tenants is high. "There's a limited pool of houses and a lot of French people who want to be there," she said. Kokosza estimates that there are only about 20 high-end houses in Saska Kepa, including 15 rented to embassies. As well as big, high-end houses, there are also about a dozen smaller, semi-attached homes that are also rented out, she said.
"Everything is rented on the spot," she said. Saska Kepa is unique as other high-end Warsaw residential areas such as Wilanow and Konstancin the former of which has the American School of Warsaw have plenty of empty houses, Kokosza said.
Dipservice, a company that owns and rents dozens of villas around Warsaw, said it had no available homes in Saska Kepa, despite the company's overall vacancy rate of 12% in the capital.
Some sources said there were still a few empty houses in Saska Kepa, but that their landlords were asking so much that even corporations have been reluctant to rent them. For example, high-end houses, which elsewhere would rent for $3,000 a month, run to $7,000 a month in Saska Kepa.
The high rents have prompted a few French tenants to forget about living in the area and move elsewhere, said Maciej Nowotny, who runs Poland Relocation Services, a property agency. Nowotny represented a Frenchman who wanted to spend no more than $2,000 for a home in Saska Kepa, but eventually paid $1,500 for a house in Ochota, where the quality of the property was much higher, Nowotny said.
But Kokosza said that Saska Kepa landlords would continue to charge a premium for their houses simply because of the French school and kindergarden. "It won't change, unless the school moves," she said.
Warsaw office vacancies among highest in Europe
Vacancy rates for modern office space in Warsaw (see the List, "Modern Office Space," page 19), which reached 14.9% in the second quarter of 2000, were among the highest in Europe, according to the report "Warsaw City Profile" compiled by Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), the U.S.-U.K. property firm.
Only Bucharest (16.6%) and Budapest (18.3%) had higher vacancy rates, the company said. Vacancy rates in other European cities ranged from 1.5% in Vienna to 13% in Prague.
Despite high vacancy rates, downtown office rents, now estimated at $28-$30 per square meter a month, are among the highest in Europe, JLL said. Only big cities such as London, Paris and Moscow have higher rents than Warsaw, the company said. Rents in other Central European cities such as Prague and Budapest as well as in Vienna and Brussels run about $20 per square meter a month.
Despite Warsaw's high prices, rents in the capital were about to stabilize, according to Peter Chatfield, JLL's director in Poland. "While rents may soften, dramatic shifts are not anticipated," he said.
While vacancies in the office market are high in Warsaw, retail properties are far from saturated, JLL said. After the giant shopping centers Galeria Mokotow and Sadyba Best Mall opened earlier this month, total modern retail space in the capital soared to 465,000 square meters more than Prague and Budapest, JLL said. In addition, 275,000 square meters of retail space, including the massive 72,000 square-meter Wola Park project, are set to open next year, the agency said. Despite that, JLL said there wouldn't be an oversupply of retail space in Warsaw anytime soon. "There still won't be enough supply to satisfy the growing demand for more retail and leisure space," Stefan Przedrzymirski, head of JLL's retail agency, said in a written statement.
Batory moves into new headquarters
The Stefan Batory Foundation, the Polish unit of the George Soros Foundation, is expected to open its $5 million headquarters on ulica Sapiezynska near the New Town this month, said Miroslaw Jednacz, partner with Jednacz Malanowski Architekci, the building's designer.
The foundation, which funds educational and self-government initiatives in Central and Eastern Europe, plans to move to the Sapiezynska building from its three rented locations on ulica Flory.
The non-profit group will occupy three floors of the six-story, 5,900 square-meter building, Jednacz said. The other floors will be rented out, he said. No one at the Batory Foundation was available for comment on the organization's rental plans.
Due to the building's proximity to the Old Town, the Batory Foundation encountered design restrictions, even though all other structures in the neighborhood were built after 1945, Jednacz said.
"We wanted to have a modern building, but one that would be traditional, not extravagant," Jednacz said. "The priority was that the building would be in line with its surroundings."
To achieve this, architects "hid" the top (sixth) floor of the building so that it would not be noticeable among the other five-story buildings in the area, he said.
The Z. Marciniak construction company, which started work on the project last year, served as general contractor for the Batory Foundation building.
In brief:
The Globe Trade Centre (GTC), a Warsaw-based developer, set a price of zl. 76.5-zl. 86 for its upcoming public share issue, the company announced last week. GTC, which is planning to offer about 20% of its capital on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, expects to raise zl. 265 million-zl. 300 million ($59 million-$66 million). Between 20-40% of the issue is to be purchased by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), GTC said. The company plans to set a final price for its issue on Sept. 26 and start listing on the exchange after Sept. 29.
Germany-based insurance company Gerling Polska leased 2,750 square meters in the Nordic Park office building on ulica Kruczkowskiego in Warsaw's Powisle district, said Unikat, a local real estate agency. Gerling is the first office tenant in Nordic Park, developed by Pol Nordic Group. The 8,000+ square-meter building, which was empty for more than a year, will open on Sept. 26.
