The development company Skanska Property has recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of its entry to the Czech real estate market. In the course of the evening held at the Skanska Groups’ headquarters in the Corso Court building in Prague 8, Skanska Property thanked its clients, present and former employees and business partners for their fantastic cooperation.
In the early years, Skanska Property focused its activities on projects in three segments of commercial property: retail (retail parks at Cerny most and Cestlice in Prague), industrial (R6 Logistics Park) and office (Bredovsky dvur and Budejovicka alej). Gradually, it started to specialize exclusively in administrative buildings. To this day, it has successfully introduced 84,000 sqm of office space in 7 Prague-based projects to the market (see overview below) and 11,700 sqm within the Nordica Ostrava project.
“We are currently one of the most active developers on the Prague real estate market. We are preparing more than 100,000 sqm of new administrative premises in highly-sought locations: Prague 4, Prague 8 and Prague 7. We are delighted to be able to contribute above all to the evolution of Prague 7, where our two projects Visionary and Port7 will significantly transform the area around Nadrazi Holesovice train station and create a new core for this city section. We want to help Holesovice experience the same rise as Karlin, and companies’ interest in our projects in this area has confirmed our choice,” said Marie Passburg, Managing Director of Skanska Property.
Skanska Property is a respected developer of premium commercial properties, valued both by tenants and investors. It innovates with its buildings not only in terms of building technology, but also in terms of the quality of interior settings and provided services. Since 2012, every single Skanska Property administrative building has had a LEED environmental certificate. The most recently completed Five project was awarded the highest score ever in the Czech Republic in the field of speculative development. The properties are designed using the BIM system as maximally efficient, and the system also monitors the efficiency of actual construction and subsequent operation.
“For institutional investors, cooperation with Skanska is a sure bet. Given our experience, we value the surety of reliability, the surety of quality technical building construction and the creation of a superior work environment,” said Tomas Fiala, Director of INVESCO Real Estate.
Skanska Property offices provide a valued work environment, and because of their customized mobile application, they offer a range of services directly in the compound or in the near vicinity: restaurants, laundry, electric car or bike rentals, fitness or nursery. For its Visionary project in Prague 7, Skanska Property is striving to obtain a WELL certificate which assesses soft factors such as access to natural light, air quality, sufficient drinking water, employee comfort and their mental wellbeing.
“In three years of activity in Prague, MSD IT has seen consistent growth and its team now includes more than 700 professionals. In 2014 we moved the pilot project of our global IT hub to the newly built Riverview building by development company Skanska Property. Due to our rapid expansion, we soon needed more space of equal quality. We found it in the Five building from the same developer, where we have created one of the most advanced workplaces in the Czech Republic,” said Richard Branton, Vice President of MSD and CTO. “The concept of buildings developed by Skanska Property fully resonates with the philosophy and needs of MSD. This is why we have leased two of their buildings in Prague’s Smíchov district in the course of two years. We are delighted to contribute to the further development of this former industrial quarter,” he added.
Skanska Property with cooperation with creative group FirstFloor also launched a new media project #MORETHANOFFICE during the celebration. This media project is comprised of online blog (at www.morethanoffice.eu) and 52-page printed magazine. It serves as a modern guide to the “office jungle,” and as a source of inspiration for a better life in the office, where most of us spend almost one third of our lives.
