Ghelamco Group sells Crown Square to Invesco Real Estate

Ghelamco Group announces that it has sold its Crown Square office project in Wola district, Warsaw, to Invesco Real Estate (IRE), an international property investment manager. The BREEAM certified class A office building, that received Eurobuild’s Best New Office Building of the year 2010 award, was sold to IRE for € 63.7 m.

The Crown Square project is located near Warsaw’s Rondo Daszyńskiego in the Wola district, an excellent office building location. The 16,000 m² class A office project contains the latest technologies, including raised floors and suspended ceilings system, large glazing enabling unlimited daylight access to the offices, as well as an expanded BMS building management system, providing supreme work comfort. A large underground three level parking offers 227 parking spaces. Crown Square is the third and final Ghelamco Crown project in Warsaw, the other projects being Crown Point and Crown Tower, the 2004 CEE Real Estate Quality Awards’ best office buildings in Central and Eastern Europe. Crown Square was delivered in April 2010 and hosts Oracle, Nike, Microstrategy and GATX Rail Poland as its main tenants. The Central and Eastern Europe real estate publication Eurobuild awarded its Best New Office Building of 2010 to Crown Square.

Construction of Crown Square was completed throughout the international economic slowdown of 2008 and 2009, as Ghelamco’s market research had indicated strong demand for prime office space in the area. Indeed, within months after completion, Crown Square was fully occupied, with multinational companies Nike and Oracle as lead tenants.

Another milestone for Crown Square was its BREEAM certification in the fourth quarter of 2010. BRE Environmental Assessment is the leading ecological certification method that evaluates buildings from many different angles, including sustainable management, energy and water consumption, air quality inside the building, the use of ecological materials, location, low waste levels and comfortable working conditions. Only a few months after another Ghelamco Warsaw project, Trinity Park III obtained Poland’s first BREEAM certificate, Crown Square received a “very good” rating, which is exceptional for post construction certifications.

Paddy Bingham, Invesco Real Estate’s Director of Fund Management comments: “Our local transactions team in Central and Eastern Europe identified this excellent high quality property for the fund, which is in a good location and is let to a diverse range of tenants with strong brands. The acquisition has further diversified our pan-European fund with properties across six of our seven target markets, being in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, Spain and now Poland, and brings the fund’s size to about € 480 m.”

“We are very proud that a global investment management firm of Invesco’s size and stature identified Crown Square as a high quality investment,” says Jeroen van der Toolen, Ghelamco’s Managing Director for Central and Eastern Europe. “It is also rewarding for us to conclude our second transaction with Invesco Real Estate. In 2005, IRE purchased another class A office building from Ghelamco: Zaulek Piekna, also a best Office Project award winner. IRE’s decision to purchase Crown Square confirms to the market at large its confidence in the quality and investment value of our projects.”

Crown Square’s assets, which are typical of all Ghelamco projects, are clear to tenants and investors: an excellent location and a superlative build quality with an uncompromising focus on client requirements and low operational costs. Ghelamco’s decision in 2009 to continue construction despite the negative economic climate proved to be spot on. Therefore, Ghelamco is confident that its office projects that are being built and planned at present, representing more than 150,000 m² of class A office space will show a similar result upon completion. Contrary to rest of Europe, Poland never entered into a recession and will show a healthy growth over the next years. However, market knowledge and built quality remain key to successful projects.

About Ghelamco:
Ghelamco Group is a leading European real estate investor and developer active in the offices, residential, retail and logistics markets. It maintains a high quality internal control with respect for agreed milestones over all its project development phases: land purchase, planning, coordinating the construction phase and sale or lease. Its projects combine prime and strategic locations with efficient and aesthetically inspiring designs. Its successes on the Belgian, Polish, Ukrainian and Russian markets are generated by the group’s professional and enthusiastic staff that is driven by the vision and passion of its management