WARSAW-Colliers International has hired Iain Leyden to lead commercial real estate project management for the company here. Leyden tells GlobeSt.com that Poland has a long way to go to return to the developer’s market days of 2006-07.
Leyden was formerly director of project and development services for Jones Lang LaSalle. The Chicago-based firm did not comment about his departure.
Poland saw some growth in the first half, with GDP increasing at a pace of 4%. Unemployment is still above 10%, at 12.2%, but is projected to drop to single digits by 2013. The country is still seen by the international investment community as a main marketplace for the Central Europe region, according to a Colliers second quarter report. There hasn’t been much construction, which should show an increase in rents and eventual demand for new space. Retail leads the product classes, with more than four million square feet of new development planned to be completed by the end of 2011 in the country, facilitating the expansion of retail chains.
Leyden says the industrial market has been a steady source of new work during the past three years, although the emphasis has been on the fit-out of existing space and build-to-suit projects rather than speculative development. There has also been a lot of office renovation work as well.
“There are signs of a steady increase in the number of new build developments commencing construction in the retail sector,” Leyden says. “However our bread and butter workload over the past 18-24 months has been in technical due diligence for the acquisition of existing real estate and project monitoring, as investor confidence in Poland increased over the period, bringing with it the additional equity needed to get finance for new projects.”
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