Sector heavyweights hog the limelight in CEE Real Estate Quality Awards shortlist

Sector heavyweights dominate the award shortlist for the sixth annual CEE Real Estate Quality Awards, as the Central & Eastern European real estate markets gain further strength amid the twin pressures of a more challenging economic environment and an increasingly mature market place.

The sector's flagship industry awards, organized by CEE Insight Forum in association with the Financial Times, are for performance and achievement in 10 leading national real estate markets in Central & Eastern Europe. The awards will be presented at the CEE Quality Awards gala dinner and ceremony at the Hilton Warsaw Hotel on 25 February attended by more than 500 of the sector's business leaders.

The shortlists for each award category were decided by the Quality Awards Jury from more than 300 nominations received for the best projects, companies and industry professionals in the sector.

The starting grid positions in the four project award, six company award and four agent award categories are for the most part taken up by established market leaders (local as well as international), or other big guns that have rolled into town more recently seeking the surer gains, if tighter margins, of a more mature economic environment and real estate investment market - catastrophic global economic meltdowns aside.

Established developers with regional spread including AIG/Lincoln, Ballymore, ECE, Ghelamco, GTC, ING, Hochtief, Orco, Panattoni Europe, Plaza Centres, Prologis, QPG and TriGranit all feature with highly competitive projects or in the developer of the year category, as do expanding or more recent market players Baneasa Development, Caleum Development, Cefin/Europolis, Mayland, Parkridge Retail, Red Group, Segro and UBM. The most open of the project award categories is the hotel, leisure and residential development of the year also sees space for developers Epic, J&T Group and Lighthouse Group.

The most notable performance is by Ghelamco, previous winners in the office development and developer of the year categories, who feature with two projects in the office development category this year, Bema Plaza (Wroclaw, Poland) and Marynarska Business Park (Warsaw, Poland), as well as an industrial project Kopylov Logistics Park in Kiev, Ukraine. The company also features as a strong contender in the developer of the year award category.

In the other company award categories for investor of the year, banking and financial services company of the year, commercial and construction services company of the year, legal and consulting firm of the year and architect of the year, are short lists are mostly populated by the major international companies active in the sector with the likes of Deka Immobilien, DEGI, Europolis, ING, Aareal, Eurohypo, Helaba, West Immo, EC Harris, Porr, Skanska, Strabag, Clifford Chance, CMS Cameron McKenna, Deloitte, KPMG, Linklaters, Salans, APA Wojciechowski, Aukett Fitzroy Robinson, Broadway Malyan and Chapman Taylor all well represented, among others.

The sixth edition of the CEEQAs also presents four agent award categories this year for office agency, retail & leisure agency, industrial agency and capital markets, which are heavily dominated by the 'super seven' international agencies CB Richard Ellis, Colliers International, Cushman & Wakefield, DTZ, Jones Lang LaSalle, King Sturge and Knight Frank. However the likes of NAI Mipa, Ober Haus Real Estate, Re&Solution and market newcomers Savills should not be discounted.

In the grand awards section, the Industry Professional of the Year award is also a pantheon of familiar faces, with the emphasis on developers who have consistently delivered high grade, commercially successful buildings that have led the market forwards over the past decade. The Green Initiative award sees a small number of highly commended nominees, with AIG/Lincoln featuring both as a company, and for their Budapest office development The Quadrum, which was the first commercial building to receive BREEAM certification.

The winner of this year's CEE Real Estate Lifeti

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