All posts by fletcher@cijeurope.com.

Retail Has Unexpectedly Returned to the Top of Austria’s Investment Market

Austria’s property investment market produced an unexpected leader during the first half of 2026. Retail accounted for approximately 31% of transaction volume, according to Colliers, placing it ahead of hotels at 25%, offices at 17% and industrial and logistics property at 13%. After years in which investors frequently favoured residential, logistics and other supposedly defensive sectors, retail has moved back into serious contention for capital. The numbers are striking, but they require careful interpretation because Austria remains a relatively subdued investment market in which several sizeable transactions can significantly influence the sector rankings.

Around €1.2 billion was invested in Austrian commercial property during the first six months of 2026 according to Colliers, approximately 17% less than during the comparable period a year earlier. Other property advisers calculate somewhat different totals because they use different methodologies, but the overall picture is consistent. Transaction activity remains relatively limited, meaning retail’s 31% share is important without necessarily proving that the entire sector is experiencing a broad recovery. Transactions including Arcade Meidling in Vienna and activity involving high-street properties contributed to the first-half result, and in a relatively thin market a handful of larger deals can make one sector appear considerably stronger than another.

Yet it would also be misleading to dismiss retail’s position as simply a statistical accident. Retail and hotels were already prominent in Austrian investment activity earlier in the year, indicating that investors had begun reconsidering assets that many institutions treated cautiously during the period of rising interest rates, weak economic growth and uncertainty surrounding consumer spending. The more important question is therefore not whether investors are returning to retail, but which parts of the sector they are prepared to buy.

Retail property is not a single investment category in any meaningful economic sense. A supermarket serving a residential neighbourhood operates under very different conditions from a fashion-led shopping centre, while a prime shop in central Vienna has little in common with a secondary retail property in a smaller regional location. Putting all of these assets into one statistical category can conceal significant differences in risk, income and future investment requirements.

Grocery and convenience-oriented properties can appeal to investors looking for comparatively defensive income. Food and everyday household purchases generate recurring customer demand and are less dependent on discretionary spending than many other retail categories. Where such properties have strong operators, established catchment areas and sustainable rents, investors can view them primarily as long-term income-producing real estate rather than as a speculative bet on consumer spending.

Retail parks offer another investment proposition. Schemes anchored by supermarkets, discount retailers, household goods and other frequently visited operators can benefit from regular customer traffic and established local catchments. Their attractiveness nevertheless depends heavily on location, competition, tenant quality, lease structure and the ability to maintain or replace occupiers. Strong assets can attract capital while weaker properties remain difficult to finance or sell.

Vienna’s prime shopping streets occupy a different part of the market. Properties in established central locations combine retail income with the scarcity of city-centre real estate. Tourism, international brands and limited availability can support demand for well-positioned units, while upper floors can provide offices, residential accommodation or other uses. For investors, the value of such a property may therefore extend considerably beyond the shop occupying the ground floor.

Shopping centres require an even more selective approach. Dominant centres with strong catchment areas, established customer traffic and diversified tenant mixes can remain attractive investment propositions. Food, leisure, services and other reasons for customers to visit have become increasingly important alongside traditional fashion retail. The situation is considerably more difficult for weaker centres, where online competition, changing consumer habits and ageing buildings can require substantial investment in energy performance, common areas, tenant configurations and the overall customer environment. Investors acquiring these properties must therefore assess not only current rental income but also the capital required to keep the asset competitive.

This is why Austria’s retail revival is better understood as a selective return of capital rather than a recovery affecting every property equally. Pricing is part of that change. Years of uncertainty surrounding retail property altered the returns investors demanded from the sector, and changes in pricing and required returns have made selected assets more interesting to buyers than they were several years ago, particularly where rental income has proved more resilient than earlier fears suggested.

An investor does not need retail sales to boom for a property acquisition to make financial sense. What matters is the relationship between the purchase price, sustainable rental income, future capital expenditure and the return required for taking the risk. That distinction helps explain why capital can return to retail even while Austria’s wider economy remains relatively subdued. Financing conditions are also less severe than they were at the peak of the monetary tightening cycle. Lower benchmark interest rates have provided some relief, although the economics of individual transactions continue to depend on asset quality, leverage, loan pricing and the income available to service the debt.

Retail’s first-half prominence also needs to be considered alongside conditions in competing property sectors. Vienna’s office investment market was exceptionally quiet during the second quarter of 2026. The availability of newly developed residential investment product remains constrained, while logistics developers continue to approach speculative construction cautiously. When fewer investible assets are trading elsewhere, transactions in retail can represent a much larger proportion of the overall market.

Retail’s 31% share therefore reflects two developments at once. Capital has become more willing to consider selected retail properties, while transaction activity in several competing sectors has remained limited. That distinction will be important when judging whether the first half of 2026 represents a lasting change. If investment continues across grocery assets, retail parks, prime high streets and selected shopping centres, there will be stronger evidence that Austrian retail has moved into a broader recovery phase. If transaction volumes fall sharply once several larger assets have changed hands, the first-half sector ranking may prove less significant than it initially appears.

The composition of future transactions will consequently matter more than the ranking itself. International capital remains active in Austria, while institutional buyers continue to account for a substantial part of the investment market. Their willingness to acquire additional retail assets would provide an important test of whether the sector is becoming a durable part of investment strategies again.

Asset quality will remain decisive. Properties with weak locations, vulnerable tenants, unsustainable rents or substantial future expenditure requirements are unlikely to become attractive simply because retail represented the largest share of investment during one half-year period. The strongest assets have a clearer investment argument. Grocery-led properties can offer relatively defensive income, well-positioned retail parks can serve established local demand, prime Vienna buildings combine retail with scarce urban real estate, while selected shopping centres can offer opportunities where the underlying location and catchment remain strong. These are different investment strategies rather than evidence of one universal retail recovery.

For owners considering a sale, the next phase of the market could therefore become increasingly revealing. If buyers compete for a broader range of properties, pricing evidence will improve and more owners may decide that liquidity has returned sufficiently to bring assets to market. Greater transaction activity could then reinforce the recovery. If demand remains concentrated on a narrow group of exceptional properties, the gap between prime and secondary retail could instead widen further.

That possibility makes Austria’s retail story more interesting than the 31% headline alone suggests. The sector may be recovering, but capital is returning with far greater discrimination than during previous property cycles. Investors are increasingly asking whether a particular location remains relevant, whether tenants can sustain their rents, how much money the building will require in the future and whether the purchase price adequately compensates for those risks.

Austria’s first-half figures therefore provide an important signal rather than a definitive verdict. Retail was the country’s largest property investment sector by transaction volume during H1 2026, but that does not mean every part of the market has recovered. The real test will be whether capital continues flowing into the sector after the transactions that shaped the first-half statistics have been completed.

If it does, 2026 may ultimately be remembered as the point when Austrian retail moved beyond repricing and re-established itself as a significant institutional investment market. If it does not, the 31% share may instead prove to have captured an unusually active six months for a relatively small number of assets. For now, one conclusion is already clear: investors can no longer treat Austrian retail as a sector that sits automatically outside their acquisition strategies. For the right property, with sustainable income and a price that reflects its risks, retail is competing for capital again.

Source: CIJ.World Research & Analysis Team

Novant Health Is Using AI to Remove Friction From the Patient Journey

Artificial intelligence in healthcare is often presented through its most dramatic possibilities, from disease detection to advanced clinical decision support. Novant Health is taking a broader approach. Rather than starting with the technology itself, the US healthcare group is looking at where patients, clinicians and hospital operations encounter unnecessary delays, administrative burdens or complexity, then asking whether AI can remove some of that friction. Speaking at AI4 2026, Vijay Sankararaman, Chief AI Officer at Novant Health, described a strategy built around three areas: patient experience, clinical care and operational performance. The objective is not to replace doctors, nurses or other employees, but to reduce repetitive work, improve access to information and allow healthcare professionals to spend more time with patients.

Healthcare contains enormous amounts of administrative activity surrounding the actual delivery of medicine. Patients may struggle to determine which clinician is available, schedule appointments, understand bills, prepare for surgery or obtain reliable answers outside normal office hours. Clinicians, meanwhile, spend substantial amounts of time reviewing records, preparing notes, responding to messages and completing documentation. Many of these processes have accumulated additional systems and workarounds over the years, creating layers of complexity that healthcare organisations and patients have effectively learned to tolerate. Novant’s approach is to identify these points of friction rather than introducing AI simply because the technology is available.

One of the clearest examples involves patients preparing for surgery. They frequently have practical questions long before entering hospital, ranging from medication and diet to preparation at home and post-operative recovery. Traditionally, many of these questions reach nurses or clinical teams through telephone calls and messages. Clinical involvement remains essential when medical judgement is required, but routine questions can arrive outside normal working hours and add to already substantial workloads.

Novant launched an AI-enabled virtual assistant called Aubrey in June 2026 as part of a phased perioperative care programme. The system can provide reminders and guidance to eligible patients, including pre-operative instructions, information about what to expect before and after procedures, scheduling assistance and practical details surrounding a hospital visit. The technology is intended to complement rather than replace clinical teams, with human oversight and existing routes for patients to contact healthcare professionals remaining in place. This provides a possible model for healthcare AI in which technology creates an additional communication layer around existing care, allowing routine information to be available around the clock while more complex questions continue to be handled by clinicians.

Novant is extending the same principle into primary care. In July 2026, the organisation announced an expansion of virtual primary-care services across North and South Carolina, including AI-supported health screening before appointments. Patients can provide information about symptoms and concerns before speaking with a clinician, giving the medical team more structured information at the beginning of the consultation. The broader opportunity is to make healthcare access less fragmented. Patients often encounter separate systems for appointments, medical questions, billing, medication and follow-up care. AI potentially creates a more continuous interface across these interactions, provided the underlying systems communicate securely and the information remains medically reliable.

The same logic is being applied to clinicians. A physician preparing for an appointment may need to review laboratory results, medication histories, previous notes and recent medical changes distributed throughout an electronic medical record. AI can increasingly assemble and summarise this information before the consultation. Novant is also using ambient clinical documentation, where conversations can be captured with patient permission to assist with preparing medical notes, together with tools supporting clinician inboxes and drafting responses to routine messages. The intention is to reduce administrative work outside normal clinical hours without transferring responsibility for the medical record to an algorithm. Physicians remain responsible for confirming that information is accurate.

Similar opportunities exist for nurses, pharmacists and other members of clinical teams. Hospital care depends on information moving continuously between different professions, making handovers and coordination potential areas for AI assistance. One example presented at AI4 involved patient telemetry. Continuous monitoring provides important information about a patient’s condition but can also generate large numbers of alerts, contributing to alarm fatigue among staff while sometimes leaving patients connected to equipment longer than necessary. Novant has used predictive modelling to help clinicians determine when particular monitoring services may no longer be required, potentially reducing unnecessary monitoring while releasing equipment for other patients.

The example demonstrates that useful healthcare AI does not always need to be highly visible. An algorithm that improves equipment allocation, reduces unnecessary alarms or helps clinicians organise information may be almost invisible to patients while still improving hospital capacity and workflow. This is particularly important because healthcare facilities contain expensive infrastructure that cannot easily be expanded whenever demand increases.

Novant is also applying predictive systems to population health. Sankararaman described work using consented electronic medical-record information to identify patients who may have elevated risks of serious conditions and could benefit from further screening. One example involved lung cancer. According to the presentation, Novant identified roughly 20,000 people within its patient population who potentially warranted additional outreach based on risk indicators. The figure represents a programme result reported by Novant rather than an independently validated diagnosis, and identification by such a model does not mean that an individual has cancer.

The value of the system is in prioritisation and speed. A health network serving a large population cannot manually contact every patient with the same intensity. Predictive models can help identify groups where screening may be particularly important, after which conversational AI can support outreach through voice or text and help patients arrange appointments. Novant said it is examining similar approaches for other conditions where earlier detection can materially affect treatment, including colorectal and breast cancer.

AI-supported screening can also expand access to services that traditionally require specialists. Sankararaman highlighted diabetic retinopathy, an eye complication associated with diabetes that can lead to vision loss. AI-assisted retinal imaging can enable screening in primary-care settings, with patients referred to specialists when results indicate further assessment is necessary. Such models could be particularly relevant in rural communities where access to specialist healthcare is more limited. These applications demonstrate that healthcare AI extends well beyond generative systems and can include predictive modelling, computer vision, conversational interfaces and workflow automation.

The third part of Novant’s strategy concerns hospital operations. Healthcare facilities are complex environments where expensive assets, specialised employees and limited capacity must be coordinated continuously. Even relatively small inefficiencies can therefore have significant financial and clinical consequences. Procedure cancellations provide one example. A colonoscopy involves more than reserving a room: clinical staff, equipment, supplies and often anaesthesia services must be coordinated around a particular time. When a patient cancels shortly before the procedure, that capacity can be difficult to refill.

Sankararaman described work using AI to understand the factors contributing to cancellations and improve the allocation of clinical resources. The objective is not simply to predict that someone may fail to attend but to identify where additional communication or preparation could prevent a cancellation and where capacity can be reassigned when a slot becomes available. The same operating model can potentially extend across hospitals, and Novant is examining applications in contact centres, supply chains, revenue management and wider hospital operations where better forecasting could help match resources with demand.

This represents an important shift in the healthcare AI discussion because the financial value of the technology may come as much from improving the utilisation of existing hospitals as from creating entirely new medical capabilities. Operating theatres, diagnostic equipment, hospital beds and clinical staff are constrained resources. If AI allows a healthcare provider to use those resources more efficiently, additional effective capacity can potentially be created without equivalent physical expansion.

That has implications for healthcare real estate and capital investment. Hospitals and medical campuses are among the most capital-intensive property types, with new capacity requiring substantial construction expenditure, lengthy development periods and complex approvals. Technology that improves the productive use of existing facilities could influence decisions about where and when additional physical capacity is required. It is unlikely to eliminate the need for new healthcare property, however. The more probable outcome is that digital intelligence and physical infrastructure develop together, with AI helping healthcare organisations operate both existing and future facilities more efficiently.

Patient communication could become another important source of efficiency. Someone preparing for surgery may need to change a laboratory appointment, ask a billing question and understand rehabilitation options. Traditionally, these issues might require several calls to different departments. Novant’s longer-term vision involves conversational systems capable of dealing with several parts of the patient journey through a single interaction. An assistant could potentially reschedule an appointment, explain administrative information and direct a patient towards appropriate follow-up services without requiring separate contacts with multiple departments.

The effectiveness of this approach depends heavily on integration. A conversational interface is only useful if it can securely interact with the scheduling, billing and clinical systems required to complete the requested action. Underlying data architecture and interoperability may therefore prove as important as the AI model itself.

Healthcare also places unusually high demands on trust. An inaccurate retail recommendation may be inconvenient, but an error involving medication, clinical guidance or a medical record can have much greater consequences. Novant says its AI programme therefore operates within a trust and safety framework covering internally developed systems, external models and technology partners, with clinical safety, monitoring, fairness, transparency and human oversight forming part of the approach.

These controls become increasingly important as AI moves from providing information towards performing actions. A system that summarises a medical record presents one level of risk, while a system capable of changing appointments, communicating clinical instructions or influencing treatment decisions requires stronger controls over what it can access and what it is authorised to do. The challenge for healthcare organisations will be to increase automation without creating invisible decision-making. Doctors and nurses need to understand where AI is involved, patients need confidence that their information remains protected, and healthcare organisations need mechanisms for monitoring systems after deployment.

The broader lesson from Novant’s programme is that successful healthcare AI may depend less on spectacular demonstrations than on solving persistent operational problems. Instead of asking where the newest model can be deployed, the organisation says it starts by identifying where patients struggle, where clinicians lose time and where operational processes create unnecessary delay or cost. Technology is then applied to those specific problems.

That approach could become increasingly important as healthcare systems face rising costs, workforce pressures and growing demand. Hospitals cannot simply add clinicians, beds and administrative employees indefinitely, making the productivity of existing resources increasingly important. Artificial intelligence offers one route to improving that productivity, but its value will ultimately depend on whether it simplifies healthcare rather than adding another technological layer to an already complicated system.

For Novant Health, the emerging model is one in which machines organise information, manage routine communication, identify potential risks and automate repetitive processes while people remain responsible for care. If that balance can be maintained, some of the most transformative healthcare applications of AI may not be those attempting to replace clinicians, but those that give clinicians more time to practise medicine and make healthcare considerably easier for patients to navigate.

Source: CIJ.World Research & Analysis Team

São Paulo’s Office Comeback Is Leaving Part of the Market Behind

São Paulo’s office market is producing increasingly encouraging numbers, but the recovery is revealing a deeper problem within the city’s commercial property stock. Demand for high-quality space is strengthening, availability in several preferred business districts is becoming scarce and rents for the best buildings are rising. Yet these conditions do not mean that every office property is recovering. Instead, São Paulo appears to be developing an increasingly pronounced divide between buildings capable of meeting modern occupier requirements and properties designed for a very different generation of office users. For investors, this distinction could become more important than the city’s overall vacancy rate.

The headline indicators are positive. Availability within São Paulo’s higher-quality office market has fallen considerably from previous peaks, reaching levels not seen for many years. Some established districts have become particularly tight, while companies searching for very large blocks of contiguous premium space have fewer options than they did only a few years ago. Rental growth is reinforcing the recovery. Landlords controlling well-located, modern buildings are benefiting from competition among occupiers seeking quality space, particularly where new supply is limited. This strengthens income expectations and improves the investment case for the best assets.

But São Paulo is too large and too diverse to be understood through one vacancy figure. Conditions can vary significantly between districts, individual streets and buildings. A modern property in a highly accessible business location can face a completely different leasing environment from an ageing office only a few kilometres away. The distinction increasingly comes down to what tenants expect from their workplaces. Companies are looking beyond the amount of space available and considering efficiency, transport connections, environmental performance, air quality, building technology, amenities, security and the overall experience provided to employees.

Hybrid working has reinforced rather than eliminated many of these requirements. Companies may occupy less space than they once expected, but that does not necessarily mean they are willing to accept lower-quality buildings. In many cases, reducing total floorspace gives an occupier greater financial flexibility to lease better premises. This creates an important change in office economics. A company can reduce the number of square metres it occupies while paying more for each square metre. From the landlord’s perspective, this means the effect of hybrid working can be very different depending on the quality of the asset. Modern buildings in preferred locations can benefit from consolidation, while older offices can lose tenants even when total employment and business activity remain relatively stable.

The resulting migration towards quality can reinforce itself. As more companies move into leading buildings, vacancy falls and landlords gain greater pricing power. Higher rents support valuations and make further investment in the property easier to justify. Older buildings can enter the opposite cycle. Tenant departures reduce income, lower occupancy makes the building less attractive to prospective occupiers and landlords become increasingly dependent on discounts or incentives to compete. Capital expenditure can then become harder to justify precisely when the property needs it most.

Age alone does not determine whether a building will become obsolete. Some older offices occupy excellent locations and can remain competitive for decades if owners continually invest in them. Upgraded mechanical systems, improved façades, modernised common areas, better energy efficiency and redesigned interiors can substantially extend the useful life of an asset. The investment question is whether the cost of those improvements can be recovered through higher rents, stronger occupancy and increased property value.

For buildings in São Paulo’s most desirable districts, the answer can increasingly be yes. Rising rents at the top end of the market create room for owners to spend money repositioning assets, particularly where the location is difficult to replicate and redevelopment opportunities are limited. The calculation becomes much harder for properties requiring extensive intervention. Replacing lifts, mechanical equipment, electrical systems, façades and building-management technology can require substantial capital. Floorplates may need to be redesigned, entrances reconstructed and common areas completely modernised. Owners must then compare the cost of refurbishment with the additional income the upgraded property can realistically generate.

Brazil’s financing environment makes that decision particularly demanding. Capital committed to a major refurbishment has to generate a return capable of competing with other investment opportunities. If the difference between achievable rents before and after renovation is insufficient, retaining the building as an office may no longer be the most rational strategy. This is where São Paulo’s office recovery could begin creating redevelopment opportunities.

A building that performs poorly as an office does not necessarily represent a poor real-estate investment. The structure may be obsolete while the land remains extremely valuable. In established urban locations with transport, services and housing demand, investors can begin considering alternative uses. Residential conversion is an obvious possibility, particularly given the need for housing across São Paulo and the desire to increase residential populations in parts of the city historically dominated by commercial activity.

But converting an office tower into apartments is considerably more complicated than replacing desks with bedrooms. Many commercial buildings have deep floorplates that make it difficult to provide sufficient natural light for residential units. Plumbing and ventilation systems may require complete redesign, while lifts, fire safety, entrances and parking arrangements can create additional complications. Some office buildings will therefore be suitable for conversion while others will not. For the most difficult properties, demolition and redevelopment may eventually make greater economic sense. The investor is then effectively valuing the property according to its land and development potential rather than its existing rental income.

This possibility creates a new way of segmenting São Paulo’s office market. Modern, well-located buildings that already meet current occupier requirements are likely to capture the strongest demand, benefit most from rental growth and attract institutional investors seeking relatively secure income. Older buildings with good locations and physical characteristics that allow them to be upgraded economically could offer value-add opportunities for investors willing to undertake refurbishment and repositioning. The most problematic category consists of offices where the cost of modernisation is difficult to justify and where existing layouts, building systems or locations limit their ability to compete.

It is this final category that could become São Paulo’s next major property challenge. As the prime market strengthens, these buildings do not necessarily improve with it. In fact, rising standards among occupiers can make their disadvantages more obvious. A company presented with several high-quality alternatives may have little reason to occupy an inefficient building simply because its rent is lower. The result could be a structural vacancy problem concentrated in particular parts of the existing stock even while São Paulo’s overall office statistics continue improving.

For investors, this means vacancy needs to be analysed at building level rather than simply at city level. A declining metropolitan vacancy rate can conceal properties that remain persistently empty because the problem is not insufficient office demand but insufficient demand for that particular type of office. The same applies to rents. Strong increases in prime asking rents do not automatically translate into comparable growth across secondary buildings. As the quality divide widens, the rental difference between the best and weakest properties may become increasingly important to valuation.

This also creates opportunities for investors prepared to take development risk. An ageing office purchased at the right price could potentially be refurbished into competitive workspace, converted into another use or replaced entirely. But each strategy requires a different assessment of construction costs, planning, financing and future demand.

The most important question is therefore no longer simply whether São Paulo’s office market has recovered. The evidence increasingly suggests that the strongest part of it has. The harder question is what happens to the buildings that the recovery leaves behind.

São Paulo’s next office cycle may ultimately be defined by this process. Modern buildings in preferred districts can continue tightening, rents can rise and institutional investment can return without solving the structural problems affecting older stock. That would produce a market where successful offices become increasingly valuable at the same time as weaker buildings lose their economic justification as offices altogether.

For some owners, refurbishment will provide the answer. For others, conversion may create a new future for an ageing property. In the most difficult cases, the greatest value may eventually come from recognising that the building has reached the end of its competitive life. São Paulo’s office recovery is therefore not simply reducing vacancy. It is beginning to determine which buildings still belong in the city’s future office market and which sites may ultimately need an entirely different purpose.

Source: CIJ.World Research & Analysis Team

Japan’s Buildings Enter a New Era of Reuse and Resource Efficiency

Japan’s construction industry is beginning to rethink what happens to buildings and their materials over the full life of a property. After decades of improving the recovery of demolition waste, attention is increasingly shifting toward extending building lifespans, retaining existing structures and finding ways to use components again rather than simply processing them after demolition.

The development has potentially important consequences for commercial real estate. Rising construction costs, tighter environmental requirements and growing scrutiny of the carbon generated during development are strengthening the economic case for renovating existing assets and reducing dependence on newly manufactured materials.

Japan already has a well-established system for dealing with construction waste. Regulations introduced more than two decades ago strengthened requirements for separating and processing materials from qualifying construction and demolition projects. Concrete, asphalt and timber became particularly important parts of this system, helping the country achieve very high levels of recovery across major construction waste categories.

The next challenge is considerably more complicated. Processing material after a building has been demolished still consumes energy and can reduce the value of what is recovered. Concrete may become aggregate, for example, while steel frequently has to be melted before it can return to construction. A more efficient approach is to preserve as much of the original component as possible. If structural elements can be removed safely, inspected and incorporated into another building, significantly more of the resources and energy invested in their original manufacture can potentially be retained.

Japanese construction companies are beginning to test this principle in actual projects. One recent development reused steel and concrete structural components recovered from an existing building in the construction of its replacement. Rather than treating the original structure solely as demolition waste, parts of it effectively became construction materials for the next property.

Although direct structural reuse remains unusual, the project demonstrates how demolition could gradually become more selective. Buildings approaching the end of their original use may eventually be considered sources of valuable components rather than simply structures requiring disposal.

Other contractors are developing similar approaches across different materials. Glass removed from building façades is being collected for manufacturing into new products, while construction plastics are increasingly being separated and returned to building supply chains. Temporary structures are also being designed so that components can be dismantled and used elsewhere.

The implications extend to the initial design of buildings. If developers know that walls, structural elements, façades or internal systems may eventually need to be removed and reused, properties can be designed differently from the beginning. Connections can be made easier to dismantle, individual materials can be separated more effectively and information about building components can be retained throughout the property’s operating life. This could eventually make future refurbishment and redevelopment less wasteful and more predictable.

Extending the life of the building itself may be even more significant. Japan’s major cities contain substantial amounts of commercial property developed during earlier construction cycles. As these buildings age, owners face decisions about whether to refurbish, reposition or replace them.

Historically, redevelopment has often been attractive because a new property can provide larger floorplates, better energy performance, more efficient layouts and potentially greater development density. However, the economics surrounding that decision are changing. Construction expenses have increased sharply, while labour availability has become a growing challenge. At the same time, environmental targets are placing greater emphasis on emissions generated before a new building even begins operating.

Retaining an existing structural frame and upgrading the rest of the property can therefore become increasingly attractive. New façades, building services, interiors and energy systems can extend the commercial life of an asset without requiring the complete replacement of its structure. For investors, this creates another dimension to the traditional calculation between refurbishment and redevelopment.

The value of an ageing property may increasingly depend on how easily it can be upgraded. Buildings capable of accommodating new mechanical systems, flexible interiors and improved energy performance could remain competitive for longer, while assets that are difficult or expensive to modernise may face greater obsolescence risk.

Environmental certification alone may not eliminate that risk. As performance expectations increase, properties will increasingly need to demonstrate improvements in actual energy consumption and emissions rather than relying solely on labels obtained during construction or refurbishment.

Materials used in new development are changing as well. Concrete is particularly important because it is fundamental to Japanese construction while its production carries a substantial carbon footprint. Government-backed research and private companies are therefore developing alternatives intended to reduce the emissions associated with cement and concrete manufacturing.

Some Japanese projects are experimenting with concrete that incorporates carbon captured during industrial processes. Recent field applications have demonstrated that such materials can satisfy demanding engineering requirements while retaining carbon within the finished product. Other projects have introduced lower-emission precast components into actual buildings and infrastructure. These examples show that the technology is progressing beyond laboratory research, although widespread commercial adoption remains some distance away.

Cost, production capacity, technical standards and contractor familiarity will determine how quickly these products become mainstream. This distinction matters for developers and investors. New materials can attract considerable attention, but many of the most practical improvements available today are less dramatic.

Renovating an existing building, recovering façade glass, separating plastics, incorporating recycled materials and designing components so they can eventually be removed may deliver immediate benefits without depending on technologies that have yet to achieve mass-market economics.

One of the biggest future opportunities could be better information about the materials contained within individual properties. Today, when an older building is demolished, determining exactly what can be recovered can be difficult. Information about materials, specifications and previous alterations may be incomplete, while potential buyers of recovered components need confidence that they remain safe and suitable for reuse.

More comprehensive records could change that calculation. Future owners could potentially know what materials are contained within a building, when they were installed, their technical specifications and whether they could have another useful life. That would begin to change the way buildings are valued.

Commercial property is traditionally assessed according to location, income, occupancy, development potential and the physical condition of the asset. In the future, the ability to adapt a building and recover valuable components could become another consideration.

There are still substantial obstacles. Careful dismantling can cost more and take longer than conventional demolition. Structural elements need to be inspected and certified before they can be used again, while storage and transportation add further expense. Developers also require reliable supplies of standardised materials, something recovered components cannot always provide.

New construction will therefore continue to dominate many development situations, particularly where existing buildings cannot meet modern technical or commercial requirements. Nevertheless, Japan’s largest contractors are increasingly treating resource efficiency as part of their long-term construction strategies rather than as a waste-management exercise at the end of a project.

That change could become increasingly relevant as the country’s building stock ages. Japan already has extensive experience recovering construction waste. The next stage is about retaining more of the economic value already embedded within its buildings.

For the property market, this means asking a different question when an asset reaches the end of its current use. Instead of immediately considering what should replace the building, owners may increasingly examine what can be retained, upgraded or transferred into the next project.

As construction becomes more expensive and environmental requirements tighten, the ability to keep buildings and materials productive for longer could become an increasingly important source of value across Japan’s commercial real estate market.

Source: © CIJ.World Japan Research & Analysis Team

Austria’s Property Slowdown Has a Supply Problem Hidden Inside It

Austria’s property investment figures weakened considerably during the first half of 2026, but the decline does not tell a straightforward story of investors retreating from the country. CBRE estimates that approximately €1 billion of property transactions were completed during the first six months of the year, around 31% less than in the comparable period of 2025. Behind that contraction, however, lies another important development: fewer suitable properties and portfolios have been reaching the market. Transaction volumes can decline because investors lose confidence, financing becomes unavailable or owners simply provide fewer opportunities for capital to be deployed. Evidence from the first half of 2026 suggests that restricted availability has been an important part of Austria’s slowdown.

Different property advisers produce different estimates of the size of the market. Colliers calculates approximately €1.2 billion of Austrian investment during H1, around 17% below the previous year, compared with CBRE’s approximately €1 billion and 31% decline. Differences in methodology and transaction classification explain why the totals are not identical, but both indicate a market operating below the previous year’s level rather than one that has ceased functioning. The comparison with 2025 is particularly important because the previous year benefited from significant residential disposals associated with open-ended property funds. Those transactions brought substantial amounts of institutional-quality housing into the investment market and increased overall volumes. With much less of that product appearing during the first half of 2026, Austria lost an important source of transactions.

The decline therefore partly reflects what did not come to market. This matters because the presence of investment capital and the availability of assets are two different things. International buyers remain involved in Austria, while institutional investors continue to participate in transactions. Buyers have become selective about property quality, income, financing and pricing, but there is little evidence that investment capital has disappeared altogether. The question increasingly facing Austria is where the next substantial supply of investible property will come from.

Real estate funds are one possibility. Austrian property funds have experienced investor withdrawals, increasing the importance of liquidity management and portfolio decisions. That does not mean a new round of forced disposals is inevitable. Fund managers have several ways of managing liquidity, and individual funds face different circumstances. Nevertheless, continued withdrawals can influence decisions about whether particular properties should remain within portfolios. Another round of fund sales could potentially change Austria’s transaction market quickly, providing residential portfolios, offices, retail properties or other institutional-scale opportunities currently missing from parts of the market.

Developers could become another source of investment product. Property development requires continuous recycling of capital. Once a project is completed, developers may choose to sell in order to repay financing and release equity for future schemes. With construction and financing still expensive, the ability to recover capital from completed projects can become particularly important. Yet developers also face a difficult calculation. If current investment pricing produces values below what is required to generate an acceptable development return, selling immediately may make little sense. Where developers have the financial capacity to retain completed buildings, they can instead collect income and wait for more favourable market conditions.

Corporate property owners represent another possible source of transactions. Businesses sometimes own offices, industrial properties, hotels or other real estate that is valuable but not essential to their principal operations. Selling these assets, including through sale-and-leaseback structures, can release capital for the underlying business. There is currently no evidence of a widespread Austrian corporate property disposal programme, but such owners could become increasingly relevant if companies decide that capital tied up in real estate can be used more effectively elsewhere.

Banks are another potential influence, although the situation requires particular caution. Credit quality in parts of Austria’s commercial property market has deteriorated substantially following the rise in interest rates, and financial regulators have responded by increasing the resilience requirements associated with certain property lending exposures. However, loan stress does not automatically produce buildings for sale. Banks have several options when borrowers encounter refinancing difficulties. Existing facilities can sometimes be extended, terms can be renegotiated, additional equity can be introduced or borrowers can agree to dispose of selected assets. Taking ownership of property through enforcement is generally only one possible outcome.

Austria can therefore experience elevated commercial property loan problems without simultaneously developing a large distressed property market. Refinancing deadlines could gradually change that balance. Properties financed when borrowing costs were much lower may face difficult decisions as existing loans mature. Some borrowers will successfully refinance, while others may reduce leverage or introduce additional capital. Where neither is possible, selling property could become necessary. If that occurs, lenders could indirectly contribute to the next wave of Austrian investment supply by encouraging orderly disposals rather than through widespread repossessions. For the moment, however, there is insufficient evidence to describe bank-driven selling as a major feature of the market.

Vienna’s office sector provides perhaps the clearest example of how limited transactions can complicate interpretation of investment demand. CBRE recorded approximately €53 million of office transactions during H1 2026, all completed during the first quarter. No Vienna office investment transactions were recorded during Q2. That statistic could easily be interpreted as evidence that investors no longer want Vienna offices. Yet the underlying occupier market remains comparatively tight, and demand continues to favour modern, well-located buildings. The lack of transactions therefore raises another possibility: there simply have not been enough suitable properties offered at prices capable of bringing buyers and sellers together.

The contrast with retail and hotels reinforces this argument. Colliers estimates that retail represented approximately 31% of Austrian investment during H1, hotels around 25%, offices 17% and industrial and logistics property 13%. Those rankings do not necessarily mean investors suddenly decided that shopping centres and hotels are fundamentally superior investments to offices or residential property. Investment capital can only purchase what owners make available. When more substantial retail and hotel properties reach the market while relatively few institutional-quality offices are offered, sector shares can change dramatically. Austria’s transaction statistics consequently reveal something about the behaviour of property owners as well as investors.

Limited trading also creates a valuation problem. Property markets depend on completed transactions to establish evidence of what buyers are actually prepared to pay. When relatively few assets change hands, owners, investors, lenders and valuers have fewer benchmarks against which to assess current values. An advertised or quoted yield is not the same as a completed transaction. Until a property trades, there remains uncertainty about whether buyers will accept the valuation implied by the asking price.

This can encourage owners with no immediate requirement to sell to wait. If rental income remains satisfactory and financing can be maintained, accepting a price substantially below earlier valuations may appear unnecessary. Owners may prefer to hold while financing conditions, investor sentiment or market pricing improve. Buyers have equally little reason to accept valuations they cannot justify. Institutional capital can choose between countries, cities and property sectors. If the return available from an Austrian asset does not adequately compensate for financing costs, future expenditure and market risk, investors can direct their capital elsewhere or wait for pricing to adjust. The result can be a functioning market with willing buyers and financially stable owners but relatively few transactions.

This may be one of the central characteristics of Austrian property investment in 2026. The next significant increase in transaction volume may therefore depend less on finding new investors than on creating additional product. Fund portfolio changes, developer capital recycling, corporate disposals, refinancing-driven sales and voluntary exits by long-term owners could all contribute. None of these sources currently provides evidence of an imminent wave of forced selling. Together, however, they identify where future transaction supply could emerge.

The timing will depend heavily on pricing. If buyers and sellers gradually become more aligned on value, owners who have postponed sales may return to the market. Each successful transaction would provide additional pricing evidence, potentially encouraging other owners to follow. A recovery could therefore become self-reinforcing, with more sales improving price discovery, stronger pricing evidence giving owners greater confidence and a broader pipeline of available properties attracting additional capital.

The opposite outcome is also possible. If owners remain financially capable of holding assets, funds avoid further significant disposals and lenders continue restructuring difficult loans, the volume of property available for acquisition could remain constrained. Austria could then continue recording relatively modest transaction totals even if investor appetite improves. This distinction matters for international capital assessing the country. A €1 billion first-half market appears relatively small, but transaction volume alone does not demonstrate how much capital would be available if more high-quality properties were offered at acceptable prices.

The better test will come when attractive institutional assets reach the market. If those properties generate competition among buyers, it would strengthen the argument that availability rather than capital is the principal constraint. If high-quality assets struggle to find purchasers despite realistic pricing, the interpretation would need to change. The second half of 2026 and the refinancing cycle that follows should provide more evidence.

Austria’s immediate investment challenge therefore appears to be less a disappearance of capital than a shortage of suitable properties being offered at prices buyers can justify. That is a fundamentally different problem from an investment market suffering from a collapse in demand, and it means transaction activity could recover faster than the first-half numbers suggest if the supply side begins to change.

The key question for Austria is consequently no longer simply how much investors want to spend. It is what will persuade the country’s property owners to sell. The answer may eventually come from fund liquidity requirements, developer financing, corporate capital strategies, refinancing pressure or simply greater agreement between buyers and sellers over current values. Until then, Austria’s investment market may continue to look weaker in the transaction statistics than the underlying availability of capital would suggest.

Source: CIJ.World Research & Analysis Team

Italy’s Next Industrial Boom Could Begin on Yesterday’s Factory Sites

Italy’s industrial property market is beginning to face a question that extends far beyond warehouses. As European companies reconsider supply chains and governments encourage greater domestic production in strategically important industries, the buildings and land required by manufacturers could become an increasingly important part of the country’s real-estate investment market. The shift is occurring while capital is already returning to Italian industrial property. Investment in the wider industrial and logistics sector reached approximately €1.1 billion during the first half of 2026, around 43% higher than a year earlier. Large portfolio transactions contributed to that increase, but companies occupying industrial property themselves also remain active buyers, meaning investors are increasingly competing with businesses that value property according to its operational importance rather than purely according to the rent it can generate.

This distinction matters because the next generation of industrial demand will not necessarily resemble conventional logistics. A distribution warehouse can often operate from a relatively standardised building provided that transport connections, labour and location are suitable. Advanced manufacturing can require a much more complicated combination of electricity, water, security, specialist ventilation, heavy floor loading, laboratories, clean production areas and dedicated technical infrastructure. Once substantial amounts of production equipment are installed, the property can become inseparable from the industrial operation. Governments are simultaneously seeking greater control over semiconductor supply, defence production is expanding, pharmaceutical manufacturing has become strategically important and automotive companies are adapting factories and supplier networks to electrification and new technologies. Italy’s existing industrial base gives it an opportunity to capture part of this investment, but the property required will not be distributed evenly across the country.

The northern manufacturing belt represents one of Italy’s strongest potential corridors. Turin, Milan and Novara combine automotive expertise, engineering, aerospace, technology, logistics infrastructure and access to the country’s deepest pool of institutional property capital. Major semiconductor investment planned for Novara demonstrates how new technology industries can introduce property requirements very different from those of traditional warehousing. Electricity availability, highly reliable technical infrastructure and access to skilled employees can become more important than simply being close to a motorway junction. Milan’s wider region has another advantage in the density of businesses already operating there. Manufacturers rarely make location decisions in isolation, with suppliers, engineering companies, research institutions, universities, logistics operators and customers all influencing where production is placed.

Turin presents a particularly interesting real-estate challenge because of the transformation of the automotive industry. The city and surrounding Piedmont region possess decades of manufacturing infrastructure, supplier relationships and engineering expertise. As traditional vehicle production changes, some older factories and supplier sites could require new uses. These properties may become opportunities for electric mobility, aerospace, defence, advanced engineering or other forms of manufacturing, but their future will depend heavily on the quality of the underlying sites. An old factory is not automatically a valuable redevelopment opportunity. Some industrial properties contain buildings poorly configured for modern production, while others require expensive environmental remediation. Contaminated soil, asbestos, inefficient energy systems and obsolete structures can turn apparently inexpensive sites into costly projects.

In other cases, however, the building may be less important than what already exists around it. High-capacity electricity connections, industrial zoning, road access, rail infrastructure and proximity to skilled workers can make an ageing factory site extremely difficult to replace. This could change the way investors value industrial property. Traditionally, an obsolete factory might be priced largely according to the condition of its buildings and redevelopment potential. Increasingly, investors may need to value the infrastructure hidden behind those buildings. A site with sufficient electricity and established industrial permissions could potentially be more valuable than a cleaner piece of undeveloped land where securing equivalent infrastructure would take years.

Veneto offers a different industrial ecosystem. Its network of medium-sized manufacturers, exporters and specialised suppliers provides a strong foundation for production investment. Rather than depending on a small number of enormous industrial plants, the region’s opportunity may lie in networks of factories, supplier facilities and specialised logistics properties serving interconnected manufacturing businesses. Emilia-Romagna provides another compelling example. The region already combines a powerful manufacturing economy with a strategic logistics position between Milan, Verona and Bologna. Automotive engineering, machinery, food production and other specialist industries coexist with some of Italy’s most important distribution corridors, creating the possibility of a broader industrial property market in which production, research, assembly and logistics increasingly operate within the same geographical networks.

The distinction between factory and warehouse may consequently become less clear. Modern manufacturers increasingly require buildings where components arrive, products are assembled, technology is tested and finished goods are distributed from the same site. Research and engineering teams can also operate alongside production. Investors accustomed to standard logistics properties may therefore encounter industrial assets that require much greater understanding of the tenant’s business and technical requirements.

Defence could accelerate this development. Higher European defence expenditure and efforts to expand domestic production create potential demand not only for major factories but for the suppliers surrounding them. Aerospace components, electronics, drones, communications equipment and precision engineering can require secure and highly specialised premises. A major defence investment can therefore have property consequences beyond the principal production facility as suppliers seek locations nearby. Semiconductor manufacturing takes specialised requirements further, with advanced facilities requiring exceptional levels of technical infrastructure and investments that can vastly exceed the value of the underlying land and buildings. Electricity reliability, water, environmental controls and specialised construction become fundamental, making suitable industrial sites scarce for reasons conventional property statistics may fail to capture.

Pharmaceutical production creates similar challenges. Italy already has a substantial life-sciences manufacturing base, and future expansion can require laboratories, controlled environments, specialised storage and complex regulatory approvals. An existing industrial location with suitable infrastructure and a history of regulated production may therefore possess advantages that cannot easily be recreated through speculative development. These trends can also influence logistics property because manufacturers need suppliers and distribution facilities around production sites. A new advanced factory can create demand for component storage, temperature-controlled facilities, secure logistics and specialised distribution, meaning the property impact of a manufacturing investment can extend well beyond the boundaries of the factory itself.

Southern Italy adds another dimension to the investment map. Government efforts to attract foreign investment and industrial projects increasingly include the Mezzogiorno, while Naples and Bari provide access to ports, large labour markets and transport networks. Land costs can also be considerably lower than in the northern industrial belt, creating opportunities for larger production sites. The challenge is whether those advantages can overcome differences in infrastructure, supplier density and skilled-labour availability. Manufacturers making large capital commitments need confidence that power, transport and permitting will support decades of operation. Financial incentives can help attract a project, but they cannot compensate indefinitely for inadequate infrastructure.

Bari could become particularly interesting where manufacturing intersects with logistics and Adriatic trade. The city and wider Puglia region provide access towards the Balkans and eastern Mediterranean while offering larger industrial sites than many northern markets. Naples and Campania similarly combine port infrastructure, aerospace and automotive experience with a substantial population base. Their ability to attract additional advanced manufacturing could determine whether Italy’s industrial-property expansion remains overwhelmingly northern or becomes more geographically balanced. For investors, this creates a different way of thinking about southern industrial property. Rather than asking whether Naples or Bari can compete directly with Milan as warehouse markets, the question is whether individual locations can develop specialised manufacturing clusters supported by logistics, infrastructure and government investment.

Brownfield redevelopment could be central to the national opportunity. Italy has a long industrial history and consequently a large stock of former factories, manufacturing land and underused production facilities. Reusing these sites can reduce pressure to develop undeveloped land while taking advantage of infrastructure already installed. Yet the economics must work. Demolition, soil remediation, structural alterations and energy upgrades can consume large amounts of capital before new production equipment is installed. Investors therefore need to compare the cost of recovering an old industrial site with the cost and time required to develop a new one. Where grid connections and permits are particularly difficult to secure, the brownfield option may become attractive even when substantial remediation is required.

This is where industrial property could begin following some of the same patterns emerging in Europe’s data-centre market. The value of land is increasingly influenced by whether essential infrastructure can actually be delivered. For advanced manufacturing, the relevant infrastructure extends beyond electricity to water, transport, labour, planning and connections to supplier networks. The change could also produce a new category of institutional investment. Traditional property funds have generally preferred warehouses because the buildings are relatively standardised and can often be leased to another occupier if the original tenant leaves. Specialised factories present greater risk because buildings designed around one production process can be difficult to re-let.

Long leases, strong corporate tenants and strategically important locations can nevertheless compensate for some of that risk. Investors may become more willing to finance specialised industrial assets when the tenant is committing substantial capital to the site and intends to remain for many years. Sale-and-leaseback transactions could also allow manufacturers to release capital tied up in property while continuing to operate from strategically important facilities. Owner-occupiers will remain an important competitor because a manufacturer investing heavily in machinery may decide that owning the underlying property provides greater security than leasing. Some of Italy’s most strategically valuable industrial sites could therefore attract bids from both real-estate investors and companies intending to use them directly.

The eventual result could be a more complicated industrial property map than the one defined primarily by warehouse corridors. Milan, Bologna and Verona will remain important because of their logistics connections, but manufacturing demand introduces additional considerations. Turin’s engineering base, Novara’s technology investment, Veneto’s supplier networks, Emilia-Romagna’s advanced manufacturing clusters and the potential expansion of Naples and Bari can all create different forms of industrial property opportunity. Not every region will attract semiconductor plants or major defence factories, nor will every obsolete industrial site find a second life. The more important change is that Europe’s industrial strategy is making the physical requirements of production relevant to property investors again.

For decades, the growth story in industrial real estate was largely about moving goods efficiently. The next phase may increasingly involve making those goods closer to European customers and securing the supply of strategically important products. Italy is unusually well placed to participate because manufacturing never disappeared from its economy. What may change is the property surrounding it. Old factories, industrial land, power connections and supplier parks could acquire new value as companies search for locations capable of supporting more technologically demanding production.

The next generation of Italian industrial property may therefore not look like another row of identical distribution warehouses beside a motorway. It could emerge from former automotive plants, brownfield manufacturing sites, technology campuses and specialised supplier clusters stretching from Piedmont and Lombardy through Veneto and Emilia-Romagna and, increasingly, towards southern industrial centres. For investors, identifying those locations will require looking beyond conventional measures of warehouse rents and yields. The most valuable industrial sites may be those where electricity, skilled labour, transport, permits and manufacturing infrastructure already come together. In a European economy placing renewed importance on where products are made, yesterday’s factory sites could become some of Italy’s most strategically important real estate.

Source: CIJ.World Research & Analysis Team

MitziLinka: Business Class-All the Priority of a Bus Queue, Plus a Curtain

There are certain moments in life when you realise civilisation may have peaked some time ago and nobody bothered to issue a press release. Mine came at Warsaw Chopin Airport, Gate 3N, while boarding a LOT flight to London.

I had a Business Class ticket. This is an important detail because Business Class used to mean something. There was a vague suggestion that, having handed over considerably more money, you might be treated differently from someone who had sensibly kept theirs. Gate 3N had other ideas.

There was no elegant stroll down an airbridge. Instead, we were introduced to one of aviation’s great equalisers: the airport bus. Business Class, Economy Class, priority passengers, non-priority passengers, people with tiny backpacks and people apparently emigrating with the entire contents of a three-bedroom apartment. Everyone aboard. Within moments, we were packed together with the intimacy normally associated with the London Underground at 8:15 on a Monday morning.

This is apparently called priority boarding. Technically, I suppose it is. They scan your Business Class boarding pass before somebody else’s Economy boarding pass, thereby allowing you the privilege of reaching the bus first and securing several additional minutes standing inside it. Premium travel has never felt so exclusive.

I completely understand that airports have limited airbridges and aircraft sometimes need remote stands. Aircraft cannot all be parked conveniently beside the terminal like Bentleys outside Claridge’s. But surely there must be a point where “priority boarding” has to involve something more substantial than being prioritised into the same bus? Perhaps LOT could install a velvet rope down the middle. Business Class passengers could be crushed elegantly against the windows while Economy passengers are crushed towards the rear. At least there would be a visual distinction.

Eventually our mobile tin of humanity arrived at the aircraft, where Business and Economy passengers poured out together and fought their way towards the stairs. Welcome aboard.

Once inside, another miracle of modern aviation becomes apparent: the European Business Class cabin. Long-haul Business Class involves enormous seats, beds, storage compartments, entertainment screens and enough electronic buttons to operate a small hydroelectric dam. Short-haul European Business Class has developed a rather more economical solution: a curtain.

LOT operates aircraft where Business and Economy share essentially the same physical seating configuration, with the Business section created towards the front of the aircraft. One of the significant benefits is that the adjacent seat is kept free, which is genuinely pleasant. But there is something wonderfully British-comedy about paying substantially more money, walking onto an aircraft and discovering that the principal piece of engineering separating you from Economy is a piece of fabric attached to the ceiling.

Better still, the Business cabin can expand according to demand. The curtain moves. Yesterday, Row 4 may have been Economy. Today, congratulations, Row 4 has joined the financial elite. Nothing has happened to Row 4. Nobody installed a larger seat overnight. The legroom fairy did not visit Warsaw. A curtain simply travelled south.

This is possibly the greatest property transaction in aviation. No construction. No refurbishment. No planning permission. Just move the boundary and suddenly you’ve created more premium real estate. As someone involved in commercial property, I can only admire it. Imagine applying the same principle to offices. “Good news, gentlemen. We’ve doubled our Grade A office space.” “How?” “We moved the curtain.”

LOT describes its short-haul Business product in terms of comfort, privacy and additional space. The empty neighbouring seat certainly helps. Unfortunately, the seat directly in front remains occupied by another human being, and this becomes particularly important when that human being discovers the recline button.

There is a special moment when you are comfortably reading something and suddenly the seat in front begins advancing towards your face like a piece of agricultural machinery. Slowly. Relentlessly. I’m watching it approach thinking, surely that’s enough. It isn’t. Still coming. My knees retreat as far as nature allows. Still coming. My laptop changes postcode. Still coming. Eventually my dentures are practically eating the headrest.

I’m 198 cm tall, which admittedly means aircraft designers probably regard me as an unfortunate statistical anomaly. My knees don’t so much sit behind the seat in front as negotiate a temporary lease with it. But surely Business Class should provide sufficient personal territory that another passenger reclining doesn’t immediately trigger a border dispute.

The problem isn’t the passenger. If the seat reclines, people are perfectly entitled to recline it. The airline designed it that way. The real question is rather simpler: if Business Class uses essentially the same seat pitch as Economy on certain European aircraft, what exactly has become more spacious? Again, I suspect the answer may involve the curtain.

Before reaching this airborne paradise, however, there is Warsaw Airport’s Fast Track experience. Fast Track is one of those magnificent modern expressions containing two extremely reassuring words: “fast” and “track”. Neither word leaves much room for interpretation. Except airports have found some.

Over the past month I’ve encountered Fast Track operating with what might politely be described as an adventurous relationship with consistency. Sometimes it is open. Sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes you wander towards what should be the premium route and discover that the normal security line might actually represent the more ambitious career choice.

LOT specifically includes Fast Track among the benefits offered to eligible Business Class passengers at Warsaw, while the airport provides dedicated Fast Track facilities. Which makes a closed premium lane particularly interesting. You’ve bought the privilege. You’ve arrived to use the privilege. The privilege is having a day off.

Nearby, the ordinary security area can resemble the opening scene of a disaster film. A couple of Wizz Air departures, several tour operators and what appears to be the entire population of a medium-sized Polish town have simultaneously decided they desperately need seven days in the sunshine.

Suddenly a thousand holidaymakers are removing belts, extracting laptops, discussing liquids and discovering for the first time that 150ml is more than 100ml. Someone inevitably reaches the front and appears genuinely astonished to discover that airport security involves airport security. Meanwhile, I’m standing there with a Business Class ticket wondering whether joining the normal queue might actually be faster than Fast Track. At this point “Fast Track” becomes less a service and more an aspirational philosophy.

This is where modern aviation becomes fascinating. We now have priority check-in, priority security, priority boarding, priority baggage, priority seats and priority lanes. There are now so many priority passengers that I fear we are approaching the mathematical point where being ordinary becomes exclusive.

Perhaps airports should introduce Non-Priority Premium. Only twelve passengers allowed. No special queue. No lounge. No priority boarding. You simply walk through the airport while members of staff whisper, “Look. It’s one of the normal people.” I’d pay extra.

But here’s the strange part. The flight was full. Absolutely packed. And everyone seemed perfectly cheerful. People were chatting. Children were looking out of the windows. Couples were heading to London. Business travellers were tapping away at laptops. Nobody appeared to be organising a revolution near the emergency exit.

And there I was, wedged into my seat, looking around and thinking: am I the only person noticing this? Or have we simply become used to it?

Perhaps we’ve gradually accepted an extraordinary number of little inconveniences because each one, individually, isn’t quite irritating enough to start a rebellion. Priority boarding leads to the same bus. Fine. Business Class gets essentially the same physical seat. Fine. The curtain moves backwards. Fine. Fast Track isn’t particularly fast. Fine. The passenger ahead reclines until you’re examining their scalp at forensic distance. Fine. Would Sir care for another glass of wine? Oh, go on then.

Perhaps that’s the genius of modern aviation. Nobody needs to dramatically announce that standards are being reduced. You just remove tiny pieces of the experience gradually enough that passengers forget they were ever included, and then some of them eventually reappear with the word “Priority” attached to them.

And we pay for them.

This isn’t necessarily a legal scandal either. European passenger rules provide compensation when somebody who actually bought Business Class is formally downgraded to Economy. But remaining inside the designated Business cabin while receiving a seat remarkably similar to Economy doesn’t automatically make it a regulatory downgrade. You haven’t technically been downgraded because, if there is any doubt, just look behind you.

There’s the curtain.

The curtain has spoken. You are Business Class.

Which means modern European aviation may have achieved something quite remarkable. Business Class doesn’t necessarily require a different seat. Priority boarding doesn’t necessarily require a different bus. Fast Track doesn’t necessarily require you to be particularly fast. And additional comfort doesn’t necessarily prevent the passenger in front from reclining until their headrest is having a meaningful relationship with your teeth.

All it really requires is that we continue paying for it. And judging by my completely full LOT flight from Warsaw to London, we certainly are.

So next time I’m standing at Gate 3N with Business Class proudly glowing on my phone and I see the bus approaching, perhaps I shouldn’t complain. I should appreciate what I’ve paid for.

After all, I’ll probably be allowed onto the bus first.

And if I’m really quick, I might even get the premium position right beside the driver.

Now that’s Business Class.

Author: Mitzilinka (Turning grim reality into comic relief—without losing the truth)

Moldova’s New Investment Corridors Are Starting to Reshape Its Property Geography

Moldova’s closer integration with the European Union is beginning to create something the country’s property market has historically lacked: credible investment corridors beyond Chișinău. For years, the capital has dominated Moldova’s modern commercial real estate market. Most higher-quality warehouses, offices, retail schemes and institutional-grade properties are concentrated in and around Chișinău, while regional markets remain considerably smaller and less liquid.

That geography could gradually change. European-backed investment in roads, border connections, energy infrastructure and private businesses is improving Moldova’s links with Romania and the wider EU. At the same time, logistics projects, industrial zones and manufacturing investment are beginning to create potential property clusters around several regional locations. The question for real estate investors is no longer simply how much money Europe is directing towards Moldova. It is where that investment could change the economics of land and development.

At the EU-Moldova Investment Conference held on 4 June 2026, investment plans and initiatives with a potential value of up to €641 million were presented. The figure combines financing expected to be mobilised alongside international financial institutions with proposed private-sector investments, rather than representing €641 million of direct infrastructure expenditure.

The conference forms part of a much broader European economic programme. Moldova can receive up to €1.9 billion through the EU Growth Plan covering 2025 to 2027, with approximately €504 million already made available by early June 2026. For property markets, however, the most important consequences may appear along individual transport and industrial corridors.

Ungheni provides perhaps the clearest example. The western Moldovan city sits directly on the Romanian border and is increasingly positioned along one of the country’s most important connections with the European Union. A new road border crossing between the two sides of Ungheni was approved by the Moldovan government in April 2026, complementing the new bridge across the Prut.

The connection is particularly significant because it will provide access towards Romania’s A8 motorway network and, through it, deeper into the European transport system. For manufacturers and logistics companies, that could materially alter the attractiveness of western Moldova.

Ungheni already has an industrial base through its free economic zone. More importantly for commercial real estate, a multimodal logistics development is being planned at Berești, close to the city. The project covers approximately 18 hectares and is intended to combine road and railway freight operations with warehousing, container handling and associated logistics infrastructure. Initial investment requirements have been estimated at roughly €18 million to €25 million.

Its railway position is particularly interesting. The location can potentially take advantage of both European and wider-gauge rail systems, giving it a role in transferring goods between different transport networks. Taken together, the bridge, border crossing, Romanian motorway connection, railway infrastructure, free economic zone and logistics terminal create something unusual in Moldova: several pieces of infrastructure converging around the same secondary location.

That makes Ungheni one of the strongest candidates to develop into a genuine industrial and logistics property market outside Chișinău. The capital will nevertheless remain dominant for the foreseeable future. Moldova had approximately 1.09 million sqm of commercial logistics warehouse space at the end of 2025, according to Invest Moldova’s market assessment, with around 70% located in Chișinău or its immediate surroundings.

The imbalance illustrates how early Moldova’s regional property markets remain. Outside the capital, transactions are less frequent and market evidence is often insufficient to establish the depth of pricing, rents and investment yields expected by larger institutional investors. Infrastructure therefore has to do more than improve journey times. It must help create sufficient occupier demand to support modern commercial development.

Bălți could provide another test. The northern city already has a substantial manufacturing base rather than being an entirely new industrial location. Its free economic zone and existing production facilities have attracted companies operating in sectors including automotive components and manufacturing.

The opportunity is therefore different from Ungheni. Bălți does not need infrastructure to create an industrial economy from scratch. Instead, better transport connections could increase the scale and international reach of an existing manufacturing cluster. If that translates into additional demand for production buildings, distribution facilities and modern warehouses, Bălți could gradually develop a deeper commercial property market around its industrial economy.

Southern Moldova presents a different investment geography. Giurgiulești is particularly significant because it provides Moldova with access to international shipping through the Danube. Its property potential consequently revolves around freight, storage, processing, manufacturing and trade rather than conventional offices or large-scale residential development.

Its strategic importance could increase further. The EBRD has agreed to sell Danube Logistics, the operator of Giurgiulești International Free Port, to Romania’s state-owned Port of Constanța. Plans associated with the transaction include infrastructure improvements, additional port capacity, new berths and development of available land.

For Moldova, closer integration between Giurgiulești and Constanța could create a more direct connection between domestic producers and one of the Black Sea region’s most important ports. For property investors, this makes Giurgiulești a specialised market to watch. Demand could emerge for warehouses, processing facilities, industrial sites and businesses serving agricultural and international freight flows.

Cahul has potential as another southern regional centre, although its real estate story is less developed. Improved links with Romania, investment in regional infrastructure and economic development could eventually support additional commercial property demand. But there is not yet sufficient evidence to describe Cahul as an emerging institutional property market.

That distinction is important across Moldova. Infrastructure investment can change accessibility, but it does not automatically create property demand. A new road can make industrial land more attractive without producing tenants. A border crossing can reduce transport times without generating sufficient freight volumes for speculative warehouse construction. An industrial park can provide development sites without creating an investment market for completed properties.

The locations most likely to succeed will therefore be those where several conditions appear simultaneously: infrastructure, electricity, available land, labour, business investment and occupier demand. Energy could become particularly important. Manufacturing facilities, refrigerated warehouses, automated distribution centres and technology-intensive businesses increasingly depend on reliable access to electricity.

Moldova’s European investment programme includes significant energy infrastructure development, meaning future industrial geography could be influenced as much by power availability as motorway access. This could create a different property map from one based purely on city size.

Rather than viewing Moldova as Chișinău surrounded by small regional markets, investors may eventually begin looking at several specialised corridors. Chișinău would remain the country’s principal commercial centre. Ungheni could develop as the western logistics and manufacturing gateway towards Romania. Bălți could strengthen its role as the northern industrial centre. Giurgiulești could become more deeply integrated into regional port and freight networks. Cahul could gradually benefit from stronger economic connections across southern Moldova and Romania.

There is also a wider strategic reason for this diversification. The war in neighbouring Ukraine continues to demonstrate the vulnerability of eastern transport routes. Disruption around Moldova’s Ukrainian border in September again showed how quickly freight and passenger connections can be affected by military activity.

For Moldova, developing multiple western connections with Romania is therefore about more than economic integration. It also creates greater resilience in the country’s trade infrastructure. That could ultimately influence real estate decisions.

Manufacturers considering Moldova will assess how quickly goods can reach European customers. Logistics companies will examine border capacity, rail connections and alternative freight routes. Developers will look for land where transport infrastructure overlaps with electricity, labour and industrial zoning. Institutional investors will arrive later.

Before they do, the more revealing activity may occur in the land market. If local investors, manufacturers and developers begin securing industrial sites around Ungheni, Berești, Bălți and Giurgiulești ahead of larger international property investors, those transactions could provide an early indication of where Moldova’s next commercial real estate markets are forming.

Moldova does not yet have several mature institutional property markets outside its capital. But for the first time, there is a credible infrastructure framework from which some of them could emerge.

The most important consequence of Moldova’s European integration may therefore not be the amount of investment announced in Brussels or Chișinău. It may be the creation of new locations where international businesses can realistically operate, developers can build and, eventually, institutional property capital can invest.

Source: CIJ.World Research & Analysis Team

Dubai’s Business Growth Is Creating a Race for High-Quality Office Space

Dubai’s continued success in attracting companies is putting increasing pressure on one of the physical resources those businesses require most: modern office space. While the emirate’s residential market is preparing for substantial new supply, commercial development has followed a different trajectory, leaving businesses competing for a limited selection of high-quality premises. The pressure was evident during the second quarter of 2026, when office occupancy across Dubai remained around 94%, while average rents were approximately 13% higher than a year earlier. At the upper end of the market, rental growth was closer to 16%.

The issue is particularly important because Dubai continues to position itself as a base for international and regional businesses. Financial institutions, professional services firms, technology companies, wealth managers and multinational groups are expanding their presence, while new businesses continue to establish operations in the emirate. Each additional company eventually creates a requirement for physical workspace. Office buildings, however, cannot respond to demand as quickly as companies can enter a market. A business can establish a Dubai operation within a relatively short period, while planning, financing and constructing a major commercial building can take several years. This difference in timing is helping create the current imbalance.

The situation is most pronounced in the higher-quality segment. Large corporate occupiers increasingly require buildings offering efficient layouts, modern technical systems, reliable digital infrastructure, strong amenities and convenient transport connections. Location and building quality can also influence employee recruitment and corporate image. This means Dubai’s overall quantity of office space is less important than it initially appears. A vacant floor in an ageing building is not necessarily a realistic alternative for a company seeking modern Grade A accommodation in an established commercial district. The effective supply available to major occupiers can therefore be considerably tighter than the total stock suggests.

DIFC demonstrates this particularly clearly. The financial district continues to attract new businesses while existing companies expand their operations. New office accommodation delivered there has been absorbed rapidly, with substantial space committed before occupiers were able to move into the buildings. DIFC Square provides a strong example. The development brought approximately 600,000 sq ft of new Grade A offices to the district in 2026, with the space already committed by the time it opened. That level of absorption illustrates the depth of demand for modern premises in Dubai’s most established financial location.

The implications extend beyond DIFC. Companies unable to obtain suitable space in their preferred district must either wait, pay more, reduce their requirements or expand their search into other parts of Dubai. This creates an opportunity for surrounding commercial areas to capture occupiers that might previously have concentrated on a smaller number of locations. Business Bay is particularly well positioned to benefit. Its proximity to Downtown Dubai and DIFC gives companies access to the central business area while providing a wider range of buildings and rental levels. However, the quality of the existing stock varies substantially, creating a clear distinction between buildings capable of competing for international tenants and those requiring improvement.

This could make refurbishment an increasingly important investment strategy. Constructing a new tower takes years, whereas upgrading an existing office building can potentially produce competitive accommodation much sooner. Improvements to entrances, shared areas, building systems, energy performance, workplace amenities and digital infrastructure can reposition older properties for a market where occupiers have limited alternatives. Jumeirah Lakes Towers offers another option. Its established business community and Metro connections provide an alternative for companies prepared to operate outside the most expensive central locations. Other districts could similarly capture demand as occupiers widen their geographical searches.

This expansion of corporate demand across Dubai could gradually alter the investment map for offices. Areas that previously competed largely on price may increasingly compete on quality, connectivity and amenities. Buildings capable of combining those characteristics with rents below the most expensive central districts could become increasingly attractive. Transport will play an important role in determining which locations benefit. As Dubai expands geographically, employers have to consider where their staff live and how easily they can reach the workplace. Offices close to Metro stations and major road connections can therefore possess an important advantage even when they are located outside the traditional prime business districts.

Flexible workspace is also helping companies manage the shortage of immediately available conventional offices. Newly arriving businesses may not know how quickly their Dubai operations will grow, making long leases and large fit-out expenditure difficult to justify. Serviced and flexible offices allow them to begin operating while maintaining the ability to expand or relocate later. For larger businesses, such accommodation can provide an interim solution while they wait for permanent premises. It does not, however, eliminate the underlying supply constraint. Flexible workspace generally reorganises existing floor area rather than adding significant amounts of new office stock.

Developers are responding to stronger rents and high occupancy, and a larger commercial pipeline is emerging. New offices are planned across several districts, including DIFC, Business Bay and JLT. Over the longer term, these projects should increase choice and reduce some of the pressure currently facing occupiers. The important issue is timing. A substantial development scheduled for completion several years from now does little for a company searching for several thousand square metres today. Consequently, Dubai can simultaneously have a large future office pipeline and very limited immediate availability.

This timing gap creates favourable conditions for existing owners but introduces risk for new developers. Projects completing while supply remains tight could enter an exceptionally strong leasing market. Buildings arriving later could face considerably more competition if several major schemes are completed within a relatively short period. Investors therefore need to examine the office pipeline building by building rather than relying on a single citywide supply number. Completion dates, pre-leasing, location, specification and competing projects will determine whether individual developments benefit from today’s scarcity or enter a more balanced future market.

Rental growth should also not be assumed to continue indefinitely. Higher rents encourage additional construction while simultaneously pushing companies to reconsider location, office size and workplace strategy. Those forces should eventually slow rental increases and produce greater equilibrium. Nevertheless, current occupancy indicates that the adjustment has not yet produced abundant choice. For some occupiers, the problem is not simply whether they are willing to pay a particular rent but whether an appropriate office is available at all.

The contrast with Dubai’s residential market is particularly interesting. A substantial pipeline of new homes is expected to provide capacity for the emirate’s expanding population and workforce over the coming years. The office sector must expand alongside that growth if companies employing those residents are to continue increasing their operations within Dubai. That relationship makes commercial property part of the emirate’s wider economic infrastructure. Offices are not simply investment assets generating rental income. They provide the physical capacity required for businesses to establish teams, employ people and expand.

A prolonged period of tight availability is unlikely to reverse Dubai’s appeal as an international business location. It can, however, increase the cost and complexity of expansion. Companies may occupy several smaller premises, remain in flexible offices longer, accept alternative districts or postpone relocations until appropriate buildings become available. For landlords and developers, those constraints create opportunity. Existing Grade A properties benefit from limited competition, well-located older buildings can potentially be repositioned, and new projects have evidence of substantial occupier demand.

Dubai’s office market is therefore entering a race between two forces moving at very different speeds. Companies continue to establish and expand operations, while commercial buildings require years to plan and complete. Eventually new construction should narrow the gap. Until then, the availability of modern offices may remain one of the less visible constraints created by Dubai’s economic success. The emirate has proved highly effective at attracting businesses. The next commercial property challenge is ensuring there is enough high-quality space for those businesses to grow once they arrive.

Source: CIJ.World Research & Analysis Team

Brussels Has Plenty of Offices but Not Necessarily the Right Ones

Brussels is developing an office-market problem that cannot be understood simply by counting empty buildings. More space is becoming available while companies are becoming increasingly selective about where they work. The result is a widening divide between modern properties capable of attracting occupiers and an older generation of offices facing a much less certain future.

This distinction became increasingly visible during the first half of 2026. Leasing remained restrained, additional space reached the market and vacancy moved upwards. At the same time, occupier activity was disproportionately concentrated in better-quality properties. Colliers reported that approximately 66% of second-quarter absorption in Brussels’ central business areas involved prime buildings. That concentration suggests that increasing vacancy does not necessarily indicate an equal weakening across the entire office sector. Brussels can have more empty offices overall while companies still compete for a relatively limited selection of modern, efficient and well-connected buildings.

Corporate requirements have changed significantly. Businesses considering a relocation increasingly assess energy consumption, environmental performance, accessibility, employee facilities and the overall quality of the workplace alongside rent. For many companies, offices have also become part of the effort to encourage employees to spend more time working together physically. The amount of space required is changing as well. A company can relocate from an older building into a substantially better one while reducing its total footprint. The landlord receiving that company gains a tenant, but another owner can be left with considerably more vacant space.

This process creates very different prospects across Brussels. The European Quarter benefits from a concentration of European institutions and the organisations, professional services firms and businesses surrounding them. That provides an unusually deep occupier base, but it does not guarantee that every building in the district will perform equally well. Modernised offices can compete strongly while properties requiring substantial investment face more difficult decisions.

Central Brussels has similar advantages. Access to railway stations, metro lines, restaurants, shops and other services has become increasingly valuable as employers consider how easily workers can reach the office. Buildings combining these advantages with high technical and environmental standards are consequently in a different competitive position from older properties nearby.

The North District presents another version of the same challenge. Its large office buildings mean that the departure or contraction of a major occupier can release substantial amounts of space. At the same time, continued investment and redevelopment show that the district retains the ability to attract capital where owners believe properties can be repositioned successfully.

The challenge can become greater outside the strongest central locations. Parts of decentralised Brussels contain office buildings conceived for different working and commuting patterns. Some depend heavily on car access and provide fewer surrounding amenities than central locations. As occupiers gain more choice, these disadvantages can become harder to compensate for through lower rents alone.

The airport area remains relevant for companies requiring motorway connections and rapid access to international transport. Nevertheless, individual buildings there still need to compete on efficiency, condition and workplace quality. Location can support an office, but it cannot indefinitely compensate for an ageing property.

This leaves Brussels with an increasingly important question: what should happen to buildings that companies no longer want as offices? Refurbishment will remain viable for part of the stock. A well-located building with a suitable structure can potentially justify significant investment in its façade, mechanical systems, ventilation, lifts, interiors and energy performance. If the completed property can attract stronger tenants and higher rents, extending its life as an office can make economic sense.

For other buildings, the numbers may be more difficult. Modernisation can become expensive, particularly when the original design places fundamental limits on what can be achieved. Owners then have to consider whether the property has greater value in another form.

Housing is one possible alternative, but converting an office into apartments is considerably more complicated than changing its planning designation. Buildings designed for large workplaces can have floorplates that are too deep for practical residential layouts. Natural light, structural columns, lifts, staircases and service cores can all restrict what is possible. Creating apartments can also require extensive new plumbing, ventilation, insulation and façades. Depending on the building, conversion can become so expensive that substantial reconstruction or complete redevelopment offers a more viable solution.

Location introduces another constraint. A former office in a central neighbourhood close to shops, schools, transport and public space can have strong residential potential. A building surrounded by major roads, parking areas and other offices may require redevelopment of the wider site before it becomes an attractive place to live.

Hotels represent another potential route for appropriately located properties. Buildings close to railway stations, central districts and major destinations may have characteristics suitable for hospitality, although room configuration, servicing requirements and operating economics still determine whether conversion works. Student housing and serviced accommodation could provide alternatives in selected locations, while healthcare, education and other institutional uses may also suit certain buildings. These possibilities should not be treated as universal solutions; their feasibility depends on the individual property, planning framework and economics.

Some of the most significant opportunities may emerge from older office parks rather than individual buildings. Large office campuses often include substantial areas devoted to parking and vehicle access. Where the existing offices are no longer competitive, owners may eventually have an opportunity to reconsider the entire site. Housing, smaller workplaces, services, leisure uses and public spaces could potentially be combined to create mixed urban districts.

Such redevelopment would take time and require substantial investment, but it could also address a fundamental weakness of some older office locations: they were designed primarily as places to work rather than neighbourhoods in which people spend the rest of their lives.

Not every building will have an obvious second life. Some properties may sit in the most difficult position of all. They could require too much investment to compete with modern offices while lacking the location, structure or economics required for successful conversion. These are the assets most exposed to prolonged vacancy, declining values or eventual demolition.

That possibility changes how investors need to assess Brussels offices. Future capital expenditure is becoming almost as important as current rental income. Investors increasingly need to understand what will happen when existing leases expire, how much must be spent to keep a building competitive and whether another use is realistically available if office demand disappears.

Two neighbouring properties can consequently have dramatically different prospects despite sharing the same postcode. One may require a manageable refurbishment and continue attracting corporate tenants. Another may require such extensive reconstruction that its underlying land becomes more valuable than the existing building.

This is why headline vacancy figures reveal only part of what is happening in Brussels. Additional modern and extensively renovated offices can increase measured availability while simultaneously making the strongest part of the market more competitive. New buildings give companies opportunities to improve their workplaces, but every relocation can leave an older property searching for another tenant.

The development pipeline therefore has consequences extending beyond the projects being delivered. Each successful new or renovated office potentially increases the pressure on an earlier generation of buildings elsewhere in the city.

Brussels is unlikely to solve that challenge through a single strategy. Some offices will remain offices after substantial investment. Others could become housing, hospitality or alternative accommodation. Larger sites may eventually support mixed-use redevelopment, while a portion of the existing stock could prove too difficult to retain economically.

The critical question for investors is therefore shifting. It is no longer sufficient to ask how much office vacancy Brussels has. The more important question is which empty buildings still have a viable future—and which ones have reached the end of their working life.

Source: CIJ.World Research & Analysis Team

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