Warsaw saw 238,300sqm of new office space come on stream in the first three quarters of 2020, bringing total office stock to 5.82m sqm. The largest completions in the last three months included the 90,000sqm mixed-use complex The Warsaw Hub and the next phase of 10,000sqm The Park.

The office development pipeline totals close to 590,000sqm, which is due for delivery in 2020-2022. Cushman & Wakefield estimates that Warsaw will see the completion of almost 355,000sqm in 2020 and approximately 340,000sqm in 2021.

“Given the current pandemic situation and subdued occupier activity, we expect a limited number of new projects coming onto the market in 2022-2024, which is likely to result in a supply gap in that period,” said Jan Szulborski, senior consultant at Cushman & Wakefield.

However, the uncertain market conditions and weaker occupier activity in the last two quarters have caused Warsaw’s vacancy rate to start rising again. Unoccupied office space increased in Warsaw by more than 110,000sqm in the last three months, bringing the capital’s total amount of vacant space to 559,200sqm. Only around 8% of that volume was in projects completed in Q3 2020. The higher space availability pushed the vacancy rate up by 1.7pp quarter-on-quarter to 9.6% at the end of Q3 2020.