The first Eika business center in the CBD (Central Business District) territory, on Konstitucijos Ave., will house the neobank PayRay Bank and a company operating in the air transport sector in the fourth quarter of 2023. Intensive negotiations are currently underway for more than half of the office space leased in the business center.
The commercial building will consist of two connected buildings – 15 and 20 floors – with a total area of 15,000 square meters. This project has been developed from the very beginning of the design according to the highest sustainability standard BREEAM “Outstanding” (Lithuanian: Outstanding), the expected energy efficiency class is A++. The companies that signed the first lease agreements have rented almost a fifth of the business center premises, which are designed with ergonomic and easily divisible office spaces.
“When we started developing the concept of the Flow business center, we were burning with one idea – to create a space that would best reflect the 21st century workplace – that would not only be attractive to businesses of various profiles due to the implemented energy-saving and sustainable engineering solutions, but would also 100 percent meet the needs of a modern employee. Even during the creative process, we began consulting with workplace anthropologists, whose knowledge helped us refine our vision of what an office space that promotes employee creativity, productivity, and successful cooperation with colleagues should look like. Today, Flow is no longer just a philosophy or an ambition, it is a materializing unique product, with its own identity and energy, in which our first tenants also believe,” shares Giedrius Brūzgė, Director of the Eika Property Management Department.
The philosophy of the business center is among the key factors when choosing office space for rent
“It didn’t take us long to decide that the Flow business center is exactly what our entire team needs. We are currently located in the central business district of Vilnius, so we can monitor the construction process every day and see the progress. When choosing new spaces for work, not only the location that meets all our expectations was important, but also the physical and emotional health of the employees. The Flow philosophy, which is based on naturalness and is focused on people, also corresponds to the PayRay Bank approach. We want employees to feel maximum comfort, so we started designing spaces that will not only have a sufficient number of workplaces, because with the successful expansion of the business, the number of employees is growing rapidly, but also recreation areas where everyone will have the opportunity to relax and recharge their batteries for further work,” says Jūratė Dacienė, HR Manager of the neobank PayRay Bank.
Vacant office space in the central business district of Vilnius is in high demand
According to Jurgita Ragaišė, head of the brokerage group in Lithuania at international real estate consultancy Newsec, the situation in the Vilnius office market is tense. Only a few new projects are being developed in the class A office building segment, and there is almost no free space in existing buildings. Development of new projects is stalling as investors face rising costs of construction materials, financing, and labor.
“The choice of office space in the central business district of Vilnius is very limited, and the low supply encourages making deals in advance, planning to move into the office space only after 12-18 months. For this reason, in such unique projects as “Flow”, free space is in great demand – tenants seek to reserve the desired floors of the building and fix rental prices even in the initial construction phase of this project. Companies are competing intensively for employees, therefore, there is an increasing attention of employers to the most attractive working conditions in business centers, which is exactly what this office complex can offer,” says J. Ragaišė.