At a press conference, officials from Apollo Real Estate Advisors and joint venture partner Rida Development revealed that they have reached an agreement on the nearly €700-million ($870-million) purchase of 28 retail properties in Poland. According to Apollo managing director William Benjamin, the assets, all master-leased to retailer Metro AG, are sprinkled throughout the major cities in Poland, with a concentration in the southern cities. The purchase was made via Apollo's first international fund and an 80% kick-in from sole underwriter Eurohypo.

According to Rida SVP Ira Mitzner, the seller was the investment consortium of Immopol GmbH. The handshake follows some nine months of intensive negotiations, he added, and amounts to what was termed the largest deal in Poland in recent memory and one of the largest in Europe this year. According to executives, Apollo is now readying its second Europe-only fund, a $500-million vehicle the firm expects to deploy over the next two years.

And in the context of record-breaking deals, Hines Italia CEO Riccardo Catella sat down for an exclusive interview with GlobeSt.com to update the progress of its mixed-use Garibaldi Repubblica project. The build, set for Milan's CBD, will be one of the largest center-city mixed-use developments to rise above any Italian city in almost three decades, he explained. Master-plan approvals, including assigned acreage for the mixed-use phase, Prevate, as well as park set-asides and municipal phases, was locked up in January, Catella says. Now, the firm awaits approvals on the mixed-use phase, due to come this April. Construction costs for the Prevate are estimated at €150 million ($186.4 million) with the total project tally weighing in at €500 million ($621.4 million).

The mixed-use portion, master planned by Cesar Pelli, will incorporate 50,000 sm of office, 15,000 sm for hotel space and an equal amount for residential use, 10,000 sm for retail and 20,000 sm for what Catella termed fashion activity, including showroom and design space.

Once all approvals are in hand, Hines has one year to clean the site (currently a rail yard) and build the infrastructure, he noted. Construction should stretch from 2006 to 2009. While a number of institutions and multi-national firms have reportedly expressed interest in the yet-to-be-built trophy, anchors have not yet been signed.