But that’s not the surprising part. Penta’s involvement looked to have been on the cards almost since June when J&T completed its acquisition of the project’s SPV HoldCo Bubny from CPI. The surprise bit is that Penta and J&T brought in another partner for the deal — a new investment vehicle called AKIPIA fronted by the Czech arms magnate Michal Strnad.

Penta took a 50% share of HoldCo Bubny as lead developer, with AKIPIA taking a 35% share. J&T stays on in the project with just a 15% share. “The investor approach prevailed — we will serve as a passive investor,” said J&T Real Estate chairman Dušan Palcr.

The motivation for CPI to sell Bubny will have been to focus on income-producing assets. With ratings agencies breathing down its neck to reduce leverage and interest rates threatening to ratchet even higher, the decision was really an obvious one.

In truth, Bubny was probably always going to need multiple sources of capital — and development know-how. After all, the site’s expected to absorb €3.7 billion of investment between now and 2050. That would include 10,000 new apartments spread across 25 blocks, including rental and student housing, offices, hotels, schools, and a park.

It would be hard to overstate the strategic nature of the location. Not only does it sit between two metro stations (Vltavská and Nádraží Holešovice), it’s now served by two train stations, after the recent opening of the Praha-Bubny commuter rail station. On top of that, the planned Vltavska Philharmonic project is the city’s most spectacular public investment in decades and will contribute vastly to the area’s value.

Ultimately, what’s striking about the news is what it says about the Prague real estate market. The ability of Czech capital to control the local real estate market has been obvious for years, but the range of high-stakes players working together on this vast undertaking is breathtaking.

Especially AKIPIA, which was set up literally the day before this whole transaction went public. Forbes rates its founder Michal Strnad as the richest Czech, and he’s joined by the late Petr Kellner’s former in-house lawyer Tomáš Brzobohatý and Marek Šmrha, who until recently was Penta’s own investment director.

Bubny has defeated every previous owner. But with Prague’s Metropolitan plan now providing planning cover for larger undertakings, the combination of Penta’s development skills plus the financial muscle backing them might just do the trick this time.

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But it’s the land owners along the route near the D1 that have the most to gain. In particular, 80 ha of agricultural land that’s zoned for commercial and residential use. Land registry records show that many of the key parcels now sit inside BFS otevřený podílový fond, an Avant-managed fund for qualified investors established only in November 2024.

The new road passes by Rozkoš and Hrnčiře on its way to Vestec, with two crucial intersections planned on the cadastral territory of Hole u Průhonic. These provide access to a project that’s long been known as the Northwest Development Zone (northwest of Pruhonice).  This agricultural land is zoned for a commercial-administrative district and a residential neighbourhood. But nothing can be built until the connector road opens. Further complicating matters, the Vestec connector can’t open until the next section of the D0 (D Zero) ring road is extended to Bechovice.

Source: ksus.cz

High capacity roads in heavily populated zones will always be controversial, so it’s not surprising that not everyone along this one is in favor of it. Take Tibor Švec, mayor of Vestec. “The way it’s been proposed, it won’t do anything for Vestec residents, so for us it’s a pointless project that makes no sense for the municipality,” he told Novinky.cz. “There are other interests here. For years now we’ve felt the pressure to raise the value of land near the D1 motorway through the construction of a new exit.”

The recent EIA filing marks the project’s second attempt at environmental clearance. The first, in 2012, produced a positive assessment — but landowners and the Prague-Křeslice district overturned the territorial decision in court a year later, forcing the project back to zero.

The Vestec connector’s history goes way back, having been first proposed in the 1970s, though it took until 1999 to become part of Prague’s master plan. Phase 1 opened in 2010, bringing traffic from the ring road to Vestec. Phase 2 has been stuck in pre-construction ever since. The Northwest Development Zone has a colourful past, having passed through Czech Land Fund into at one point Eurospektrum Group, which had connections to some political high-flyers, including the adviser to a former PM, the mother of a former head of Prague transport, and a former mayor of Prague.

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Ultimately, though, bubbles are at the core of this narrative. Established in 2023, Bubblify International appears . . .

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“We don’t plan by saying we must grow to 25 billion next year,” says Latuske. “If we’re not convinced an asset is right, we’ll accumulate cash and wait.” It’s the kind of line every fund manager recites, but Latuske insists ZDR Investments’s track record proves they’re serious. The fund for qualified investors ZDR QIF has delivered stable returns for eight consecutive years, with equity returns running between 10 and 13%, and a dividend payout of around 8% for those investors who choose the income option — (95% opt for growth shares, partly for tax reasons).

LEASE MANAGEMENT AS A CORE DISCIPLINE

The headline acquisition of 2025 for the ZDR QIF fund was the Aventin Retail Park in Jihlava — roughly 26,000 sqm of retail space and one of the largest retail parks in the Czech Republic. But Hladký says deal volume isn’t the goal, it’s preserving cash-flow. The real achievement he’s proud of is that every lease renewal targeted for the year was successfully completed.

That’s important, because the fund currently manages more than 700 leases. Its weighted average lease term (WALT) has been pushed from six to seven years — a notable shift on a portfolio spanning 447,000 sqm of lettable space. “That’s the foundation,” says Latuske. “Investors can reasonably predict that the stable returns we’ve generated for eight years will continue.”

The commercial leasing environment was shaped by the inflationary shock of 2022-2023, when cumulative Czech inflation hit approximately 25% over two years. Full indexation clauses meant some tenants saw rents jump by 25% for the same space. ZDR Investments’s approach was pragmatic: negotiate slightly below full indexation in exchange for longer lease commitments. “It was a win-win,” says Latuske. “We extended lease length, they got breathing room.”

Retrospectively, Hladký frames this as a stress test. “When tenants renew after going through covid, surging energy costs, and 25% cumulative inflation — that confirms you didn’t make a mistake when you bought the property five or six years ago.”

YES TO AUSTRIA!

Czech assets now account for roughly 40-45% of the portfolio, a ratio that has held steady for about three years as ZDR Investments has expanded into Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, and Slovakia. The logic for Austria is straightforward: 70-80% of tenants are the same German and Austrian chains operating in Czech retail parks, bank financing terms are more favorable, and — critically — it’s nearly impossible to build a greenfield retail park there anymore. New Austrian projects are almost exclusively brownfield conversions or reconstructions.

So the share of Austrian assets in ZDR Investments’s portfolio is increasing steadily, with the fund managing to acquire high-quality retail properties in the market. Last year, the fund acquired the EUCO retail parks in Wolfsberg and Eugendorf, followed this year by the acquisitions of PRO Linz and the retail park in Amstetten. All four originate from the portfolio of the developer Rutter Immobilien Gruppe. With more than €100 million-worth of activity, ZDR Investments is becoming an increasingly significant player in the Austrian retail real estate market.

OFFICES A NO-GO

ZDR QIF’s investment strategy focuses primarily on retail parks anchored by grocery and everyday-goods retailers. But originally, the fund also held an office building in its portfolio. Ultimately, however, the 2019 acquisition of Nordica Office in Ostrava from Skanska served as an education in just how complex it is to manage a 12,000 sqm asset with ten tenants and short leases of three to five years. Latuske says you find yourself in constant incentive negotiations, solving ESG retrofit headaches in an already-built structure. ZDR Investments eventually sold the building to RT Torax, the dominant office player in Ostrava.

The comparison with operations in the retail sector are stark. “When you only have one office building, you can’t offer tenants flexibility,” Latuske explains. “In retail, we know every chain from Šluknov to Rijeka.” The Nordica exit crystallized the fund’s strategic focus: grocery-anchored retail, retail parks, and logistics — nothing else.

ZDR Investments plans further disposals in 2026. Not from distress but to validate portfolio pricing. “Once every two years, we sell something just to show investors the valuations are real,” says Hladký. With interest rates expected to remain stable and yields on retail parks still comfortably above financing costs at around 7%, the partners see no reason to deviate from the formula.

The ZDR Investments Group currently holds around 22,000 investors, accepts new capital on a monthly basis, and — somewhat unusually for managers sitting almost CZK 21 billion.

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The site occupies the southwest corner of the Na Jelenách – Chilská – K Hrnčířům intersection, directly adjacent to the MOL filling station. Public records indicate a structure of up . . .

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New data from Savills Research’s European Retail Market report suggests CEE markets have evolved from secondary expansion targets into primary entry points for international retailers seeking growth outside saturated Western European markets.

The Czech capital leads 96 major European urban markets in projected per-capita annual consumer spending growth through 2030: 5.1% in clothing and footwear, 6.7% in furniture, and 7.9% in telephone equipment. Pařížská Street remains a magnet for new luxury brands, with recent and planned openings from CHANEL, Ermanno Scervino, Damiani, Max Mara, and Pasquale Bruni.

“The Czech capital continues to reinforce its reputation as one of Europe’s most attractive entry points for international brands,” said Veronika Králová, research analyst at Savills, noting that Prague combines robust domestic demand, strong tourism inflows, and accelerating consumer spending.

Warsaw and Prague offer substantially lower prime flagship rents—55% and 20% below the gateway city average, respectively. This creates financial headroom for market-testing strategies that would be prohibitively expensive in established Western European capitals.

Warsaw, for its part, has seen 70% of new international fashion and jewelry entrants since early 2024 come from aspirational or luxury segments. Its positioning has long since moved beyond that of “value-retail.”

American retailers now represent 25% of all new international store openings across Europe, up sharply from 14% in 2024, while European-origin brands still account for 56% of new entrants.

Softening US domestic consumer confidence appears to have accelerated expansion timelines, writes Savills. While trade tariff tensions caused initial hesitation, the July EU-US trade agreement seems to have further strengthened business sentiment, clearing the path for US brands to cross the Atlantic.

“Recent trade tensions may have generated some macro-economic headwinds, but for US retail brands, it appears to have accelerated expansion,” said Marie Hickey, Savills director of commercial research.

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The consortium of Upvest and RSJ already holds a 25% stake in the shopping center through the CCM SICAV fund, acquired in Q4 2024. The majority owner and manager remains Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, which handles management, operations, and development of the property, including the delivery of the 9 100 sqm extension of the center.

CCM SICAV II targets a combination of institutional capital and qualified investors with a minimum ticket of CZK 1 million, distributed through Komerční banka. The fund sits in an equal position with the earlier CCM SICAV, while Upvest and RSJ plan to launch two additional vehicles—CCM SICAV III and IV—during 2026 to exercise the remaining purchase options and reach their 40-49% target.

The shopping center has been undergoing a substantial modernization and expansion pushing its leasable area toward 94,100 sqm. Investors will buy in at current value and are expected to receive annual distributions from cash flow before a planned exit around 2030-2031.

For Upvest, the deal represents a quantum leap in scale and credibility—made possible by Komerční banka’s outright acquisition of the platform. Direct access to KB’s private wealth division definitely increases our fundraising capacity, says CEO David Mazáček. Additionally, the brand association opens doors that simply weren’t available before.

The firm’s approach inverts the traditional fund game plan. Rather than raising a blind pool and then hunting for deals—what some dismiss as “black box aggregation”—Upvest identifies opportunities first, structures them, and only then sources capital for each specific transaction.

“We always structure a situation, be it senior financing, mezzanine financing, sometimes equity,” he explains. “We go to the market, we structure it, we find a deal, and then we source the capital for it.” That transparency means investors should know precisely what they’re backing.

Entry points vary dramatically: around CZK 150,000 for typical deals, though standard debt transactions can start as low as CZK 5,000. Upvest enters projects at strategically de-risked stages—residential developments after planning permits are secured but sometimes before bank financing conditions are met. It can also help developers release equity once sufficient pre-sales are locked in.

“We’re not trying to replace banks,” Mazáček emphasizes, four months into his tenure. “Banks will always be cheaper than private capital.” Despite KB ownership, Upvest maintains relationships across Czech banks and structures deals to fit any reasonable capital stack. Since 2017, Upvest has deployed more than CZK 6.7 billion into projects valued at CZK 50 billion.

With KB’s wealth management clients now in play alongside thousands of existing platform investors, Mazáček is hunting for more deals at the Černý Most scale.

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Four interconnected sections will house retail, restaurants, the Time Out Market concept with fifteen food vendors, and a renovated baroque riding hall that forms the development’s centerpiece.

Crestyl chose to work on Savarin with Thomas Heatherwick and his studio, for whom the project represents its continental European debut. Crestyl has already completed the first phase—restoration of the baroque Savarin Palace designed by Kilián Ignác Dientzenhofer. The restored building now houses the Mucha Museum, which opened in February with eleven reconstructed baroque sculptures adorning its facade.

Construction is scheduled to begin next year, with completion targeted for 2029. The project includes barrier-free metro access, rooftop gardens, and public green space in what was previously an inaccessible courtyard.

Beyond the main commercial spaces, the development will feature underground exhibition areas specifically designed to potentially house Alfons Mucha’s monumental Slovanská epopej (Slavic Epic), adding cultural gravitas to the mixed-use complex. The building facing Jindřišská street will contain its own private green courtyard alongside multiple restaurant concepts, while the historic riding hall will be transformed into premium event spaces for corporate and social functions.

“We’ve worked intensively on the preparations for several years, and it’s truly cost us a great deal of work and effort. Now we’ll undertake preparing the documentation for the construction permit. We expect to start the actual construction early next year, which would allow us to complete the entire project and open it to the public in 2029,” says Simon Johnson, CEO of the Crestyl Group.

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Nový Máj has been developing very positively so far – visitor numbers and revenues in key parts of the project have exceeded our original expectations. During the first year of operation, it became clear that the concept we chose appeals to a wide spectrum of visitors and that it works in practice the way we’d hoped. The individual concepts are already generating operational profits, which we see as an encouraging signal for the coming years. The upper floors are the performing best – especially Levels and the rooftop restaurant Fly Vista. Both of them naturally support the attractiveness of the entire building and attract visitors to return repeatedly.

How did you replace the children’s play center?

The Levels concept performed above our expectations after opening, and its expansion to another floor thus became a natural step. Originally, a children’s fun center operated on this floor, which we replaced with another floor of Levels – featuring interactive attractions, a large conference hall, and the largest 4K screen in the Czech Republic. We wanted to respond to visitor interest and strengthen what works best in the building. Levels proved to be a strong and viable concept that naturally attracts a wide spectrum of visitors.

What percentage of visitors are Prague residents? How many of them are foreign tourists and how do you try to reach this segment?

According to our internal data, for example from payment cards, we estimate that approximately half of the visitors are Prague residents. The rest come from other parts of the Czech Republic and from abroad. We try to reach foreign visitors through a combination of online and offline activities – for example, digital campaigns, collaboration with travel-focused influencers, or through presentations in selected locations such as airports and tourist-frequented areas.

What is your strategy for increasing revenue?

The building operates based on long-term rental contracts, so rental income is largely predetermined. Any potential growth could come more from extraordinary activities – for example, short-term rentals of passages or spaces for advertising and event purposes.

With the concepts we operate ourselves (like Levels or Fly Vista), we mainly try to make people want to come back to us. We organize various events, adjust our offerings according to the season, and work to ensure that every experience is worthwhile. The best result is when they come back, and we think they will if they enjoy being with us.

How important are the butterflies by David Černý — and will you be able to keep them?

The butterflies by David Černý are a significant visual element that gives Máj’s facade an iconic character and attracts public attention. At the moment, they are part of the center’s long-term concept, and we are interested in keeping them as part of the building’s identity.

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Prague’s high street has always been bursting with potential. But for long periods of time, you had to squint to see it, with improvements arriving in fits and starts. The 1996 completion of Myslbek marked the beginning of Na Příkopě modern era, providing Prague 1 with its first huge chunk of modern office and retail space. The reconstruction of Slovansky dům in 2000 was another important sign of progress. But it wasn’t until Palladium was completed in 2007 that the future shape of Prague began to emerge.

And it was right around the same time (2006) that the city came up with its vision for the redesign of Wenceslas Square. But deliberate obstructions and the city’s decrepit planning system blocked any progress on the country’s most important public space until the 2020s.

In the meantime, investments began to fill in the gaps. Florentinum showed what was possible on the Florenc-edge of the center. But overall, it’s been a slow, building-by-building process.

Until after the pandemic, long-planned projects finally began coming to fruition. In 2023, Masaryčka opened up after a decade of planning work, replacing an unsightly brownfield with high quality retail, office and urban space.

Last year, work completed on the reconstruction of the lower half of Wenceslas Square. By getting rid of parking (and cars looking for parking) the space has opened up for a pedestrian zone, benches and a ground-level water feature popular with little kids.

Work has since gotten underway on the upper half of the square, which will include the re-introduction of trams and make better use of the public space. It’s no wonder that major retail brands are positively noticing the change. Central Europe’s largest Nike store is due to open at the corner of Wenceslas and Na Příkopě in the Koruna building. Just a few dozen meters along Na Příkopě, next to the Beneton store, a new Arket store will open by second half of this year.

The 100 Yards development is another game-changer, says Jan Kotrbáček (Cushman & Wakefield), since it brings nearly one-quarter of Na Příkopě under single, unified management. The scheme will feature seven units, including a Boss. “Each new brand raises the level,” he says.

Next to the Powder Tower is the prominent Trinity Palace building, whose bottom two levels should see high-quality retail open for trading sometime during 2026.

One of the biggest surprises is what’s happening at Nám. Republiky 3, with project Hybernia Palace. This is the building next to the Hybernska theater across across the square from Palladium. Not all of the details are public yet, but the investor Eco-Invest reportedly has a construction permit for the creation of a 7,700 sq.m scheme designed internally to accommodate flagship-size units for a selection of international brands.

“We are in advanced negotiations with some of the biggest global retail groups,” says Kotrbáček. “It’s going to be the major catalyst for this location, due to its size, stunning location and 150 meters of corner frontage from 3 directions.”

At the moment, the Hybernia theater across from Obecní dům acts as a sort of barrier between Na Příkopě and Palladium on the far side of Nám. Republiky. This new project will connect the square with Na Příkopě and V Celnici street. Reconstruction of the building and the surrounding public space should seriously enhance the quality of the location’s environment.

For Kotrbáček, the main significant of Hybernia Palace will be to make large-scale, downtown retail units possible, something he insists will help everyone. “Palladium is going to benefit because it only has 40,000 sqm of retail, which is not enough. They will never be able to accommodate the biggest fashion anchor tenants. This has always been difficult to find downtown because there was only space on Na Příkopě and Vaclavske nam.”

Ultimately, improvements on either ends of this improving zone will continue to add commercial value. But progress remains piecemeal. Novy Máj, the Drn building and even the Pilsener Experience are signs of progress along the Můstek / Národní Třída axis, while Kotva’s reconstruction and Palac NR7 ( Nám. Republiky 7) should help further spur improvements, not just on the square, but along Revoluční towards the river.

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