The vacancy rate for Prague’s office market is expected to grow over the next year as supply increases. As of the end of the third quarter, 337,500 sqm of the city’s office space, or 12 percent of the market supply, was unoccupied. The number could grow to 14 percent by 2014. Bert Hesselink, the head of office agency at CBRE, said the new projects coming on line may lure tenants away from the city’s older office buildings. Some owners may be forced to renovate or remodel their buildings for a different use in order to re-lease the space. Hesselink pointed to the current Vodafone building in Prague 10, which the landlord plans to refurbish into residential and retail space once the mobile operator relocates to its new headquarters in City West in Prague 5-Stodůlky.
