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effective space usage are of utmost importance. Outside Warsaw this trend is most visible in
mature markets like Kraków, Wrocław, and Tri-City, which also constitute hubs for consumer
service centres. The largest of these regional business parks are: Kraków Business Park in
Zabierzów (60,000 sq.m, more space planned); Quattro Business Park and Bonarka4Business
in Kraków (50,000 sq.m and 42,000 sq.m, respectively); Olivia BC in Gdańsk (53,000 sq.m);
andWest House inWrocław, comprising three buildings totalling 22,000 sq.m (with additions
totalling 70,000 sq.m planned).
Advantages…
For tenants, the main benefit of business parks is the possibility for expansion, both in the con-
text of one building as well as many buildings. Furthermore, tenants are attracted by flexibility
and lower rents (as compared to areas in or close to the centre). Business parks are usually lo-
cated close to major roads, and as such are easily accessible by car, as well as having significan-
tly more parking spaces than the average office building, which many companies value highly.
Renting space in a business park is beneficial, especially for larger entities occupying tens of
thousands of square metres of space. Not only does it allow larger occupiers to consolidate
the area they occupy and optimize space usage, but it also allows them to reduce costs. In the
last few years, a number of corporations have relocated from offices in central locations to
business parks in other areas. The biggest of these was Orange’s relocation from a building
located in the Central Business District to a business park on Aleje Jerozolimskie (Orange vil-
lage), a BTS scheme providing ca. 45,000 sq.m of office space. Another such example is the
relocation of Bank Pekao to ca. 40,000 sq.m in Lipowy Office Park on Żwirki i Wigury Street.
Aside from consumer service providers (BPO/SSC) and the largest corporations occupying all
or most of business park schemes, the main occupiers of such schemes are companies from
the IT and manufacturing sectors.
Excepting the factors mentioned above, a major benefit of business parks are the various addi-
tional services that are provided by them. In the current, highly competitive market additional
functions such as preschools, grocery shops, canteens, restaurants, coffee shops and banks have
all but become a standard. In order to attract and retain tenants, owners are providing additional
services and functions not found in other investments. The location of business park schemes
outside of city centres allows them to use this relatively large area to utilise the space between bu-
ildings in innovative ways, creating attractive recreational spaces – such as parks and gardens –
with seating and relaxation areas, Wi-Fi connectivity and courts for team sports. Such solutions,
for the most part, set business parks apart from centrally-located office blocks and allow them
to offer companies solutions that most standard office schemes are simply unable to provide.
…
And disadvantages
Naturally, there are two sides to the business park coin. Given the out-of-centre location, these
parks are usually characterized by lower availability of public transport options as compared
to their centrally-located competitors, which can be a significant issue especially for young
people who do not own cars. Business park owners do, however, offer some solutions to
this issue by implementing dedicated bus lines, or city-bike rental locations in the immediate
vicinity of schemes.
Another negative aspect of business parks and strictly-business areas is that they operate within
certain timeframes, and as such suffer a mass exodus around going-home time. A solution to
this issue could lie in spatial planning and use. Appropriate plots could allow for the creation
of housing schemes in tandemwith large business park projects. This would not be possible in
every scenario, especially where the schemes are located immediately adjacent to motorways
or expressways. However, the fusion of office and housing schemes makes sense on many
different levels, especially from an urban-planning point of view.
Despite landlords placing various services and facilities within their business park schemes,
they are unable to compete directly with those office schemes located in the centre; office park
schemes are typically reliant on those services and points of sale that can be found in—and are
dedicated to—business parks.
To sum up, business parks are a beneficial solution for companies searching for lower rental
costs and schemes with a possibility of expansion. The advantage of this kind of scheme is
that there is typically a larger numbers of parking spaces available, while a disadvantage is
inferior access to public transportation. Business parks are offering more and more conve-
nient incentives to tenants, which is linked with high uptake and a need to stand out from the
competition. Nevertheless, in this domain, business parks will necessarily be second best, as
tenants of centrally located office schemes have significantly better access to a multitude of
consumer services.
Katarzyna Lipka
Associate Director, Consulting & Research Department, DTZ
