Portico opens entertainment center in Poland
Portico Development, a U.S.-owned multiplex cinema developer, opened its first entertainment center in Poland last month in the northern port city of Gdynia, the company said.
The new Gemini Gdynia is the first of 10 planned Portico entertainment centers across the country. The cinema developer, which plans to invest $200 million in the project over the next few years, is already developing sites in Gdansk, Krakow and Wroclaw and has started work on a couple of others, according to a company press release.
Portico said it spent $24 million on Gemini Gdynia, which is located along a pleasant walking area next to the city's harbor.
The entertainment center has 12,000 square meters of space and includes a multiplex cinema operated by Silver Screen, a cinema operator affiliated with Portico. The project is the first multiplex cinema in the Tri-city area, which along with Gdynia includes Gdansk and Sopot. "It's the first multiplex in the Tri-city area and the interest is huge," said Paulina Ostrowska, Portico's public relations and marketing manager.
Gemini is Silver Screen's second Polish multiplex after it opened an outlet in the Europlex building in Warsaw earlier this year. With eight screens, 2,144 seats and 3,800 square meters of space, the Gdynia Silver Screen is bigger than the Europlex cinema, which has eight screens but only 1,300 seats, Ostrowska said.
In addition to a multiplex, the Gemini Gdynia entertainment center contains a 4,000 square-meter retail space that includes sports stores, boutiques, restaurants and bars. The project also has parking for 460 cars, according to Portico.
Ostrowska said that the company planned to locate Silver Screen cinemas not only in its own developments, but in projects developed by other companies (such as in the case of the Europlex building, which was developed by Kinomax).
Silver Screen said it planned to work with another developer in its next multiplex project in Lodz. That cinema is to be located alongside the Ibis hotel at the intersection of ulica Piotrkowska and ulica Pilsudskiego and is scheduled to open this fall, Ostrowska said.
Radio Zet not going to Reform
Radio Zet quit its plan to move to the Reform Plaza building and instead could move to a new office in the Zurawia 8 building in Warsaw, property sources said.
"This is not our plan anymore," said Krzysztof Kouyoumdjan, Radio Zet's public relations manager, about the company's negotiations with representatives of Reform Plaza on Aleje Jerozolimskie.
Radio Zet, which now uses three different downtown offices two on ulica Piekna and one on Nowy Swiat wants to bring its operations including radio studios and an advertising company under one roof. Earlier the company said it was close to nailing down a deal with Reform Plaza.
After its failure to negotiate a deal with Reform Plaza, Radio Zet, which needs about 2,500 square meters of space, started sniffing around for another building in the capital, Kouyoumdjan said. A final decision hasn't been made yet, and the radio station is not likely to move before early fall, he added.
Some property sources said that Radio Zet is close to a signing deal for space in the Zurawia 8 building, which has recently been finished by local developer Berken.
Unikat, the agency marketing Zurawia 8, said that so far no deals had been signed in the new building, which has total office space of 5,300 square meters.
Prologis gets new tenant in Teresin
Distriland, a Dutch-owned distribution company signed a contract last month to lease 12,000 square meters of warehousing space and 800 square meters of office space in the Prologis Park Teresin project, according to Jones Lang LaSalle, the agency representing the developer in the deal.
Distriland, a subsidiary of the Netherlands-based Royal Frans Maas Group, is the first tenant in Prologis Park's second building located 40 kilometers west of Warsaw along the highway leading to Poznan, the developer said. Distriland will occupy almost half of the building, which is now under construction and will have total space of 27,000 square meters.
The contract with Distriland follows completion of the first 27,000 square-meter warehouse in Teresin. That building, where 20,000 square meters was leased to Whirlpool, a U.S.-owned white goods distributor, was officially opened in June, the developer said.
Distriland's move to the Prologis warehouse project is part of a wider trend by distribution companies to relocate to modern facilities close to big cities, according to Jones Lang LaSalle agency, which advised Prologis in the deal.
"We believe that a number of significant deals in the warehouse sector will be announced before the end of the year that should lead to a record take-up for the year 2000," said Ben Bannatyne, leasing agent at Jones Lang LaSalle in a written statement.
In brief:
Slawomir Najnigier, the chairman of the government's Housing and Urban Development Office announced his resignation from the post earlier this month, the office said in a statement.
Najnigier will leave the position at the end of August. To become effective, the resignation needs to be accepted by Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek.
The Housing and Urban Development office wouldn't comment on the reasons for Najnigier's resignation, but some sources said it was connected with the Freedom Union party's withdrawal from the governing coalition in June.
