Radio Zet scans downtown for new home; Intraco fills void<BR>
The desire to locate all Radio Zet operations under one roof, including its studios and advertising firm RRM, is spurring the move. Radio Zet and RRM are owned by Eurozet.
"They want to be in one building," said Pawel Skalba, an agent with Prime Property agency, which said it was looking for an office building on behalf of Radio Zet.
Currently Eurozet is situated in several locations including two main sites on Piekna, which house the radio broadcaster's studios, and on Nowy Swiat, where its subsidiary RRN is located, said Monika Bednarek, general director of Eurozet. The company would relocate both studios and RRN, which have total staff of about 160 employees, to its new location. The company would however keep its Piekna and Nowy Swiat offices for other purposes, Bednarek said, who wouldn't specify the purpose.
Radio Zet, which plans to move by mid-year 2000, is not looking for just any property, the company said. "We are searching for a slightly unusual space," Bednarek said. "We want a place where we'll be alone or have only a few neighbors." This requirement, however, rules out most of the modern office buildings in central Warsaw, which are usually larger than 2,500 square meters and have more tenants.
"It's even better if it is an older building," said Skalba of Prime Property. That profile is preferred because Radio Zet plans to refurbish the space to fit a radio studio. Older buildings also have the advantage of high ceilings, which better fit studio needs, he said. The height requirement is a minimum of three meters. Modern office space generally runs 2.8 meters, Skalba said.
Radio Zet is searching for locations close to government ministries and Parliament to facilitate newsroom activities, thus downtown Warsaw or the nearby Mokotow district are preferred locations, Skalba said. Radio Zet's target rental price is $18-$22 per square meter a month, but the company said it would also consider buying the site, he said.
Amid exodus, Intraco finds taker
The Intraco office building signed a contract with local software producer Altkom, which will lease four floors or 2,000 square meters in the building located in the northern part of downtown Warsaw, according to real estate agency Unikat, which brokered both sides of the deal.
Altkom will move in January to Intraco, a recently renovated skyscraper built in the mid-1970s. "A good client reached us," said Marek Ziajowski, marketing manager with Intraco.
Ziajowski would not reveal detailed terms about the price and duration of the lease. However, the asking price runs $33 a square meter, which includes all extra costs, Ziajowski said. This represents a more than 10% drop from August, when Intraco said its asking monthly rent was $37.
"It's obvious that rents are different from asking rents," said Leszek Gietko, head of the office agency at Unikat, which charged a commission from both Altkom and Intraco. "I don't treat asking rents seriously," he added, while not revealing how much Altkom was paying.
Intraco, which has total space of 31,000 square meters, was previously one of the most prestigious office buildings in Warsaw. But over the last two years many tenants, including the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Shell and Renault, left Intraco and moved to newly built offices. The exodus resulted in about 5,000 square meters of unrented space before Altkom signed on, Gietko said.
Intraco's Ziajowski wouldn't reveal Intraco's current vacancy rate. He only said that the building didn't have entire floors to rent but only several smaller office units of 160 and 320 square meters of space respectively.
Some current tenants in Intraco, including Pioneer's venture capital fund, said they were considering leaving Intraco as well. Ziajowski said that Intraco was aware of that and willing to renegotiate deals with tenants to keep them. "We are prepared," he said. "The competition is high."
Slippage on high street
Top retail space in Central European capitals in 1999 got cheaper as compared to other prime locations, according to U.K.-based consultancy Healey & Baker in its report last week on the world's most expensive shopping streets.
Warsaw, Prague and Budapest all slipped in Healey & Banker's city ranking of high streets based on rental rates worldwide, according to its report on retail space.
The annual cost of renting space on Warsaw's Chmielna and Nowy Swiat streets is $960 per square meter, Healey & Baker said. That figure puts Warsaw in the ranking's 31st position, equal to Caleo Victoria in Bucharest, Romania, and behind high streets in St. Helier in the Channel Islands. Last year Warsaw ranked 29th, equal to the Channel Islands and ahead of Caleo Victoria, said Healey & Baker, which wouldn't reveal last year's average annual cost to rent a space in Warsaw.
Also, Prague's Vaclavske Namesti (Wenceslas Square) and Budapest's Vaci Utca slipped in the ranking. Prague, with annual square meter rental costs of $1,139 for retail space slipped to the 23rd position (after Shanghai) from 17th in 1998, while Budapest with annual rent of $949 per square meter took 33rd this year (after Bucharest) vs. 23rd in 1998, Healey & Baker said.
The downtrend in rents for retail space in Central Europe could reflect an economic slowdown compared to other areas, according to Healey & Baker. "The level of growth in the world's best retail markets provides a fairly accurate gauge of how well each local economy has been functioning over the past year," John Travers, senior partner of Healey & Baker, said in a written statement.
New York's Madison Avenue with retail space running at $6,459 per square meter a year retained its position as the most expensive retail street followed by Hong Kong's Causeway Bay ($4,994). Avenue des Champs Elysees in Paris ($4,951) and London's Oxford Street ($4,469) came in third and fourth, respectively, according to the recent ranking.
Cities where rents are climbing the most quickly include Copenhagen, which is ranked 14th (23rd in 1998), Milan ranked 16th (21st in 1998) and Amsterdam ranked 18th (27th in 1998). Locations following the Central European downturn include Rio De Janeiro ranked 20th down from 15th last year, Stockholm ranked 24th down from 19th last year, Chile's Santiago ranked 26th down from 16th last year and Helsinki ranked 28th down from 22nd last year, Healey & Baker said.
"They want to be in one building," said Pawel Skalba, an agent with Prime Property agency, which said it was looking for an office building on behalf of Radio Zet.
Currently Eurozet is situated in several locations including two main sites on Piekna, which house the radio broadcaster's studios, and on Nowy Swiat, where its subsidiary RRN is located, said Monika Bednarek, general director of Eurozet. The company would relocate both studios and RRN, which have total staff of about 160 employees, to its new location. The company would however keep its Piekna and Nowy Swiat offices for other purposes, Bednarek said, who wouldn't specify the purpose.
Radio Zet, which plans to move by mid-year 2000, is not looking for just any property, the company said. "We are searching for a slightly unusual space," Bednarek said. "We want a place where we'll be alone or have only a few neighbors." This requirement, however, rules out most of the modern office buildings in central Warsaw, which are usually larger than 2,500 square meters and have more tenants.
"It's even better if it is an older building," said Skalba of Prime Property. That profile is preferred because Radio Zet plans to refurbish the space to fit a radio studio. Older buildings also have the advantage of high ceilings, which better fit studio needs, he said. The height requirement is a minimum of three meters. Modern office space generally runs 2.8 meters, Skalba said.
Radio Zet is searching for locations close to government ministries and Parliament to facilitate newsroom activities, thus downtown Warsaw or the nearby Mokotow district are preferred locations, Skalba said. Radio Zet's target rental price is $18-$22 per square meter a month, but the company said it would also consider buying the site, he said.
Amid exodus, Intraco finds taker
The Intraco office building signed a contract with local software producer Altkom, which will lease four floors or 2,000 square meters in the building located in the northern part of downtown Warsaw, according to real estate agency Unikat, which brokered both sides of the deal.
Altkom will move in January to Intraco, a recently renovated skyscraper built in the mid-1970s. "A good client reached us," said Marek Ziajowski, marketing manager with Intraco.
Ziajowski would not reveal detailed terms about the price and duration of the lease. However, the asking price runs $33 a square meter, which includes all extra costs, Ziajowski said. This represents a more than 10% drop from August, when Intraco said its asking monthly rent was $37.
"It's obvious that rents are different from asking rents," said Leszek Gietko, head of the office agency at Unikat, which charged a commission from both Altkom and Intraco. "I don't treat asking rents seriously," he added, while not revealing how much Altkom was paying.
Intraco, which has total space of 31,000 square meters, was previously one of the most prestigious office buildings in Warsaw. But over the last two years many tenants, including the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Shell and Renault, left Intraco and moved to newly built offices. The exodus resulted in about 5,000 square meters of unrented space before Altkom signed on, Gietko said.
Intraco's Ziajowski wouldn't reveal Intraco's current vacancy rate. He only said that the building didn't have entire floors to rent but only several smaller office units of 160 and 320 square meters of space respectively.
Some current tenants in Intraco, including Pioneer's venture capital fund, said they were considering leaving Intraco as well. Ziajowski said that Intraco was aware of that and willing to renegotiate deals with tenants to keep them. "We are prepared," he said. "The competition is high."
Slippage on high street
Top retail space in Central European capitals in 1999 got cheaper as compared to other prime locations, according to U.K.-based consultancy Healey & Baker in its report last week on the world's most expensive shopping streets.
Warsaw, Prague and Budapest all slipped in Healey & Banker's city ranking of high streets based on rental rates worldwide, according to its report on retail space.
The annual cost of renting space on Warsaw's Chmielna and Nowy Swiat streets is $960 per square meter, Healey & Baker said. That figure puts Warsaw in the ranking's 31st position, equal to Caleo Victoria in Bucharest, Romania, and behind high streets in St. Helier in the Channel Islands. Last year Warsaw ranked 29th, equal to the Channel Islands and ahead of Caleo Victoria, said Healey & Baker, which wouldn't reveal last year's average annual cost to rent a space in Warsaw.
Also, Prague's Vaclavske Namesti (Wenceslas Square) and Budapest's Vaci Utca slipped in the ranking. Prague, with annual square meter rental costs of $1,139 for retail space slipped to the 23rd position (after Shanghai) from 17th in 1998, while Budapest with annual rent of $949 per square meter took 33rd this year (after Bucharest) vs. 23rd in 1998, Healey & Baker said.
The downtrend in rents for retail space in Central Europe could reflect an economic slowdown compared to other areas, according to Healey & Baker. "The level of growth in the world's best retail markets provides a fairly accurate gauge of how well each local economy has been functioning over the past year," John Travers, senior partner of Healey & Baker, said in a written statement.
New York's Madison Avenue with retail space running at $6,459 per square meter a year retained its position as the most expensive retail street followed by Hong Kong's Causeway Bay ($4,994). Avenue des Champs Elysees in Paris ($4,951) and London's Oxford Street ($4,469) came in third and fourth, respectively, according to the recent ranking.
Cities where rents are climbing the most quickly include Copenhagen, which is ranked 14th (23rd in 1998), Milan ranked 16th (21st in 1998) and Amsterdam ranked 18th (27th in 1998). Locations following the Central European downturn include Rio De Janeiro ranked 20th down from 15th last year, Stockholm ranked 24th down from 19th last year, Chile's Santiago ranked 26th down from 16th last year and Helsinki ranked 28th down from 22nd last year, Healey & Baker said.
