The latest meeting of the BPCC’s Real Estate & Construction policy group took place on 8 June 2022 at the new Warsaw offices of CBRE.
Joanna Mroczek, head of research and advisory at CBRE Central and Eastern Europe outlined the key trends in the world of real estate, including the ‘hotelification’ of office space. Logistics, driven by the demands of e-commerce, is booming, as is industrial real estate in Poland, driven by near-shoring of supply chains. Arkadiusz Rudzki, executive vice-president, leasing & sales at Skanska, set out the developer’s point of view, highlighting the problems caused by a tight labour market and rocketing price rises of building materials. Both Ms Mroczek and Mr Rudzki forecast a downturn in construction output and a consequent rise in rents.
Advisor to the board at Saule Technologies, Miłosz Olesiński, presented the future of solar technology – perovskites – translucent crystals with photovoltaic properties that Polish scientist, Olga Malinkiewicz devised a way of ink-jet printing onto plastic film. The translucent nature of perovskite, and the thinness of the film, means that the technology is far lighter and more adaptable to buildings than conventional silicon-based solar panels, he said, showing samples from the Saule factory. This year, the factory, in Wrocław, is set to manufacture 48,000m2 of perovskite foil – next year, production will be ramped up to 720,000m2. Global demand, he said, is likely to be “hundreds of square kilometres”, as the construction sector worldwide begins to adopt the new technology.
There were so many questions from participants that there was no time for the traditional round-table state-of-trade discussion, which will be held over until the next meeting of the Real Estate & Construction policy group. Staff from CBRE showed the group around its new offices in the Warsaw Unit building, pointing out features that will characterise the future workplace; above all, the office has to be an attractive, interesting space to which employees will want to come.
