The 15th annual CIJ Awards Czech Republic took place in the same ballroom at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Prague where the event began in 2001. Over the last two decades, the event has grown into a gathering of nearly 300 people with more than a dozen sponsors and 16 separate prizes. The biggest winner of the night was undisputedly Penta Investments, whose project Aviatica earned it a number of awards over the course of the evening: Best Office Development, Developer of the Year and ESSA Green Developer of the Year. Aviatica is a recently opened 27,000 sqm office building that marks the beginning of the transformation of a former sprawling industrial site. Years of work lay ahead of the investor, which is planning to create a modern, mixed-use zone to replace what had been for decades an eyesore. Penta’s success in convincing a prestigious tenant like Oracle to relocate to the site is a strong signal for the long-term success of the project.
Among the more prominent projects to receive accolades at the CIJ Awards 2015 was Panattoni Europe’s Amazon Fulfillment Centre near the Prague airport. There are relatively few prestige projects in the industrial property sector, but a building of this magnitude for a tenant with the reputation of Amazon certainly makes this one of them. The developer had to overcome a complicated political situation, meeting strict demands placed on it by local officials, in order to complete the development. For its troubles, Panattoni Europe’s leader in the Czech Republic, Pavel Sovička, was able to collect not only the Best Industrial/Warehouse prize, but also the one for Lease of the Year.
The final project category for 2015 was Best Residential Development, and it went to the first phase of Crestyl Group’s Dock-River Watch project in Libeň. The project offers 65 high-quality flats in a location few can duplicate, along the Vltava River.
There were many other winners, including JLL, which won the Best Office Real Estate Agency and Capital Markets Team of the Year prizes. Cushman & Wakefield also picked up a pair of prizes for Best Retail Real Estate Agency and Best Logistics Real Estate Agency. CBRE took home the plaque, meanwhile, for Property Management Team of the Year. The 2015 Best Local Real Estate Agency award was picked up by 108 Agency. UniCredit Bank was judged to have been the Financial Service Provider of the Year, while Dentons collected the prize for Law Firm of the Year. The Industry Leadership Award went to the CEO of CTP Invest, Remon Vos. The ESSA Leading Green Building of the Year, went to Corso Court, developed by Skanska Property.
The CIJ Awards are organized around Central and Eastern Europe by Roberts Publishing Media Group, publisher of the leading property monthly magazine CIJ. Awards are given on the basis of a mix of jury judges, selected members of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and top business leaders active in the Czech Republic’s property sector.
