Adam Zdrodowski: The launch of ROBYG Business Center in Warsaw’s Wilanów district marks your company’s first …

Diversifying revenue streams

Lokale Immobilia sits down with Zbigniew Wojciech Oko?ski, president of the management board of Warsaw Stock Exchange-listed developer ROBYG, to talk about the company's entry into the commercial segment of Poland's property market and its plans in the residential sector

Adam Zdrodowski: The launch of ROBYG Business Center in Warsaw’s Wilanów district marks your company’s first commercial investment in Poland. What’s the rationale behind the firm’s entry into the sector?

Zbigniew Wojciech Oko?ski: We bought the land in Wilanów a few years ago in the belief that this project would complement the main part of our business: the development of multifamily residential buildings.

We also came to the conclusion that the investment would fit the concept of the whole Miasteczko Wilanów estate. We’ve been involved in the development of that project since construction began.

Apart from housing schemes, the estate will also feature office and retail space. Several other developers are working on commercial projects in the area. This is how the most modern neighborhoods in the world are designed these days.

Your company is not the only residential developer in Poland that has entered the commercial property market of late. Will this trend continue?

We can assume it will. For any large, experienced developer that has accumulated a certain amount of capital and land, entering new sectors of the property market is a natural way of developing its business activity. It also gives a company diversified sources of revenue and thus greater security.

How would you respond to the claim that a company that has until now focused solely on building apartments does not have the know-how needed to develop office space?

In the case of our company, such a claim would be totally unfounded. One of our co-owners is active in the office market in Israel, so we will be able to use the ample experience that we have gained there in the Polish market.

What will be built in the next phases of ROBYG Business Center?

We are planning 28,000 sqm of office and retail space in the next, five-floor building in the complex. However, it is possible that this space will, in the end, be distributed across several smaller buildings. That will ultimately depend on the tenants which we will secure for the investment.

Don’t you face strong competition from the developers that have already been involved in office projects in Miasteczko Wilanów for some time now?

We rather see those seemingly competing projects as a magnet that will help promote the location in general and will attract tenants to the Miasteczko Wilanów estate, from which our investment will definitely benefit as well.

We see the area as a promising office location; some of the employees of the potential tenants that could lease space in the planned offices in Miasteczko Wilanów already live, or will soon live, in the neighborhood.

Are you already planning new commercial projects in other locations in Poland?

As for purely office projects in completely new locations, their potential launch will depend on how successful the Wilanów investment is. However, we are now planning commercial space within our ongoing and planned residential projects in Warsaw and the Tri-city area.
One of the buildings in the Osiedle Kameralne estate in the capital’s Bemowo district, for instance, will mostly feature retail space and offices with just its two top floors expected to house upmarket apartments.

Will you continue to concentrate most of your activities on the residential market in the upcoming years?

By all means. We have actually stepped up our residential activity in recent months. Last year we managed to sell more than 1,000 apartments, which makes us one of the three largest developers in the sector. Currently we are building a total of some 1,300 units in our Warsaw and Tri-city projects.

Are you planning to expand to other Polish cities as well?

No. In the current uncertain market conditions that would be too risky. You have to remember that starting development activity in a new market is a complex, time- and cost-consuming logistical process.

We will grow in the cities in which we are already present. In Warsaw, for one, we have recently bought land in the Bemowo district, where we will develop a new housing estate with approximately 70,000 sqm of usable space. The first phase of the project alone will deliver some 300 units.

We are also looking for plots in other parts of the city. For instance, we would like to secure land on the right bank of the Vistula River where we have not yet built a single project and where we would like to establish a presence.

From Lokale Immobilia

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Adam Zdrodowski: The launch of ROBYG Business Center in Warsaw’s Wilanów district marks your company’s first ...