Warehouse vacancies fall, speculative developments abound

Despite increasing supply, the overall warehouse vacancy rate in Q3 in was at 9.3 percent, significantly below the 10.5 percent registered in the previous quarter, according to a recent report by JLL. Among the main submarkets, the highest share of unleased space was found in Warsaw Inner City (15.6 percent) and Central Poland (15.0 percent), and the lowest in Poznań (3.7 percent) and Wrocław (5.4 percent). The two western cities are also where the bulk of the warehouse space is being built. “The largest stock increases were registered in Wrocław and Poznań, where most notable completions involved two of the three Amazon buildings. After these spectacular completions, 539,000 sqm of industrial space is still under construction. Again Poznań and Wrocław have the highest developer activity with a combined total of 55 percent of Poland’s industrial stock in the pipeline,” said Jan Jakub Zombirt, Senior Research Analyst at JLL. At the end of Q3 2014, the entire modern industrial stock in Poland reached 8.2 million sqm, recording an increase of 436,000 sqm on Q2. Importantly, speculative developments are again on the rise. As of the end of Q3 they accounted for 24 percent of the stock under construction, well above the 9.6 percent registered in the previous quarter, the report reads. The largest speculative projects include the extension to the North-West Logistic Park in Szczecin (42,500 sqm – all speculative), Panattoni Park Ożarów II (20,000 sqm, of which 16,400 sqm is speculative) and Panattoni Park Poznań IV (35,000 sqm, of which 15,000 sqm is speculative).