In Prague, the only office building has started to be constructed since January

Prague - Since the beginning of this year, the construction of only one larger office building has been initiated in Prague. This is the City Deco project by the developer company ECM in Pankrác. Ondřej Novotný, an analyst at the international consulting company King Sturge, told ČTK. According to him, projects are prepared in many cases, but the developers are waiting for a key tenant.
    "At this moment, new speculative construction has effectively been halted," the expert stated. Banks currently generally do not lend to developers until they lease about half of the planned project's area. In the case of the construction initiated this year in Pankrác, the key tenant became the company MeridianSpa, which has leased 5,800 square meters in the building for 20 years, according to ECM.
    According to a qualified estimate by King Sturge, by the end of this year, around 50,000 square meters of office space could be under construction. This is approximately equivalent to five medium-sized buildings. However, this would be nearly four times less than in 2008, when in the capital construction began for 180,000 square meters of offices according to the international consulting firm CB Richard Ellis.
    Currently, there are still plenty of vacant offices on the market, according to the analyst at King Sturge. Projects initiated during the construction boom from 2006 to 2008 are being completed. "We will probably notice a change already in 2010, when it could be a problem for companies to find available spaces in finished or under-construction projects that meet their expectations and needs," noted Novotný. He anticipates that due to the current slowdown in construction, next year may likely repeat the situation from 2006 when there was a shortage of offices, which also reflected in higher prices and rents.
    "If the economy returns to growth in the second half of this year or next year and there is a change in the banking market, new office buildings will start to appear from 2011. If not, the realization of projects will probably be postponed," the analyst added.
    The latest data from the association of real estate consulting firms, Prague Research Forum, indicates that at the end of the first quarter of this year, there were 2.58 million square meters of office space in the metropolis. However, approximately one-tenth of them were vacant.
    
The most significant office projects expected to be introduced to the Prague market in 2009:

Project	Area in m²	Developer	Status at the beginning of June
Trianon	18,500	Hochtief Development	completed
Palác Archa, Phase II	9,000	Orco	under construction
Vysočanská brána	9,610	Orco	under construction (before occupancy permit)
Prosek Point C	8,700	J&T Real Estate	under construction (before occupancy permit)
Futurama Business Park, Phase I	15,000	Immorent	under construction (before occupancy permit)
Amazon Court	22,000	Europolis	completed
Prague Marina Office Center B	10,500	Lighthouse Group	under construction
Prague Marina Office Center A	4,500	Lighthouse Group	under construction
Factory Office Centre - F	14,000	CSIA	under construction (before occupancy permit)
South Point	7,500	AMA Development	construction halted
Průmyslová Tower	7,800	CTY	renovation completed, further construction halted