Panattoni acquires land in Silesia – EuropaProperty

Panattoni, a market leader in industrial real estate in Europe, has ventured into Silesia with a project dedicated to city logistics. The developer acquired a 14.4-hectare site at ul. Miedziana to build City Logistics Katowice. Construction works at the park, anticipated to feature 70,000 sqm at full build-out, will commence before the year-end.

City Logistics Katowice will comprise four buildings totalling 70,000 sqm, of which around 5,000 sqm will be dedicated to office space. Phase one provides for the construction of two halls, featuring respectively 6,785 sqm and 21,359 sqm. The park will be built on a 14.4-hectare site in the north-eastern part of Katowice. It is as little as 3.5 km from the city centre, which will significantly facilitate the tenants’ city logistics operations, as well as make it easier for the employees to commute.

City Logistics Katowice will be right next to the national road no 86, just 5 km from the Murckowska junction on the A4 motorway (running through southern Poland, from the border with Germany to Ukraine), and around 15 minutes’ drive from the A1 motorway, connecting the north and south of the country. There are also three international airports within a short reach of the park.

“City parks are principally intended to address the needs of customers keen to fulfil online orders within short timeframes due to the development of e-commerce,” explains Marek Dobrzycki, Managing Director from Panattoni from Panattoni, adding “There are fewer and fewer available sites for warehouse development within city limits, hence the growing interest in land for reclamation and brownfield projects. In such projects, degraded post-industrial areas can be restored to a condition rendering them useful to new users, like in the case of the City Logistics Katowice site.”

The site at ul. Miedziana lies in a historic mining and metalworking area. Some of the land has been contaminated by oil derivatives. The developer will have to remediate some 2,000 cubic metres of soil. The cost of the procedure is estimated to reach approx. € 330,000 (about PLN 1.4 million).

Panattoni has a growing track record with brownfield projects. Take, for instance, the 30,492 sqm facility for the Lear Corporation developed on the site of an existing, decaying building in Legnica, or the reconstruction of a factory for K-Flex Polska. Since 2016, Panattoni has operated a structure dedicated to environmental studies, responsible for implementing the developer’s strategy of revitalising contaminated post-industrial areas.