Retail sector investors focused on retail parks

The trade sector, greatly weakened by the pandemic, has gained a new investment niche. This year, the increased activity of investors, now mainly focused on the construction of retail parks and convention centers, will result in the largest growth of these facilities in the history of the Polish market.

“In the first half of this year, in retail parks alone, just over 100,000 sqm of Gross Leasable Area (GLA) was commissioned. There is even more area planned to be completed in the second half of the year. If the performance of the ongoing investments will be finalized on time, this year will end with a record-high result in terms of new supply in the retail park segment. It will be a breakthrough for the development of this format on the domestic market. The interest in such projects is enormous. Investors focus primarily on the smallest cities with less than 50.000 residents, where almost 70 percent of the supply is now under construction,” Agata Karolina Lasota, Managing Director of LBC Invest, said.

In recent years, we have witnessed a two-way development of the retail sector. It was above all the number of large shopping centers, with extensive entertainment and gastronomic offer that was growing, while at the same time there were more and more facilities of small areas, such as regional and local retail parks as well as everyday shopping centers. The last decade has seen a twofold increase in the supply in the area of retail parks.

In the past quarters, however, we could observe a total slowdown in investments in large-format shopping centers, and on the other hand, intensification of investors' activities related to the construction of smaller retail facilities. LBC Invest data shows that currently under construction there are retail parks that will provide almost 240,000 sqm of area, most of which are expected to be available on the market by the end of this year.

(WBJ)