Empty Offices
By the end of this year it is expected that the unoccupied space in Sofia will rise two fold. According to the predictions this will be about 10% of the total volume of the space for rent in the Bulgarian capital. At the moment the office space in Sofia is 874 100 sq. m. of which 80 000 sq m are unoccupied.
The supply of office space already has overcome the demand. The difference between the beginning of the year and the end is significant. For comparison in June 2008 the office space was just 3.8 % of the rental space. Despite the recession, the construction in the autumn months has not stopped and in September alone new 65 500 sq m of office space have been newly completed, 81% of them in the outskirts of the city, where most of the offices are unoccupied. Alongside the recession, the reason for this is the unfavourable location of these offices. They are mostly in places with poor infrastructure and bad transport connections. According to the analysts the high number of empty offices is mainly due to the completion of two large office buildings – one near Sofia Airport and the other in the area of Business Park Sofia – where the rent of 18 Euros per square metre is unreasonably high.