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A RT I C L E
When writing this article, I’m sitting in one of the modern
office buildings in the Tri-City, drinking coffee and trying to
remember what was here 5 years ago. It is difficult to ima-
gine that a cityscape could have changed so drastically over
the course of only few years; there is steel, glass, prominently
displayed logos belonging to organizations that employ tho-
usands of young people. I may as well be in Szczecin, Kraków,
Wrocław, Łódź or Poznań, not to mention Warsaw of cour-
se. Over the past twenty five years we have built more than
8
million sq.m of modern office space across Poland – which
is considerably quicker than the result for other cities in the
Central and Eastern Europe region.
When I was a child, I would frequently visit my family in
Warsaw. My parents and I would stay at the Forum hotel,
and I always asked for a room on the highest possible floor,
so I would be able to admire the great city panorama. I was
always most impressed with the office buildings: Intraco,
Oxford Tower, Centrum LIM. Some of had taken years to
be built; all of them have a great story to tell. The majori-
ty were developed as part of revitalization of old industrial
land, decrepit ruins, warehouses and parking lots. I re-
member the story behind the Blue Tower at Plac Bankowy,
which had taken 15 years to build. Located at the site of
the Great Synagogue blown up during the war, it gave rise
to numerous controversies. It was in the end completed by
a Yugoslavian company and was the first building to be gi-
ven a unique glass façade that was to reflect the blue sky.
Organized tours to Warsaw would visit it immediately after
its launch.
“
Never too much of a good thing” is an old Polish proverb that, at the first glance, does not seem to work in the context
of real estate. However, is this definitely the case?
Polish office market is certainly
more resistant to fluctuations
resulting from external economic
shocks and its growth has for years
now been stable