Klaipeda FEZ Is Looking For a Developer For the REHAU Factory

The Klaipeda FEZ management company is looking for a new partner, a real estate developer, to build the factory for REHAU, the German polymer giant. The FEZ expects that a developer can be found in the upcoming couple of months with the contract signed promptly, and so the work on the new factory could start in September, with the project due to be finished by October next year.

A few weeks ago, REHAU announced its new investment in Klaipeda. The company plans to start manufacturing microducts for optic fiber cables in 2022, employing 55 people to start with, including executives, engineers, mechanics, electricians, administrators, equipment operators and warehouse staff. The products made by the REHAU factory in Klaipeda will mostly be supplied to wholesalers, telecommunications companies, and municipalities in European countries.

Vaidas Velykis, the Business Development Manager at the Klaipeda FEZ, says that REHAU chose Build-to-Suit strategy for its expansion in the FEZ, where the factory is built by an independent contractor, with the company renting the space afterwards.

“Of course, REHAU positively evaluated the talent pool and FEZ infrastructure in Klaipeda, but speed was also especially important,” said V. Velykis at the Colliers International breakfast for international real estate leaders of the Baltics, which took place in Vilnius.

“We signed the contract with REHAU back in February and immediately started preparing: picking the architects for the new factory, with plans to start with the technical project for the factory soon. The initial work to form the land slot for the new factory is also being done. These steps, among others, will allow us and REHAU to save around 4 months, which is important because speed can be a critical factor when choosing a place to invest in. We are starting to look for a developer, who could take the baton starting in June.”

Colliers International Advisors will be the company to partner with the Klaipeda FEZ and REHAU in the project. Regimantas Kacevičius, a partner and the Head of Industrial & Logistics at Colliers International, says that REHAU’s decision to not invest in the building themselves creates an attractive opportunity for the professionals of the market – local and international real estate developers – to get involved with the project. With this step, REHAU can significantly reduce their startup costs, while the real estate developer involved in the project will gain a solid tenant, a long-term contract and a project that will remain liquid for a long time.

“In Lithuania, the Build-to-Suit market began in 2015. Since then, nine projects of this kind have been carried out or planned. Altogether, the total area of the spaces developed this way is around 138,000 square meters or a third less if we discount the projects from subsidiaries, which were not offered on the open market,” said R. Kacevičius.

“With that said, new project development methods are becoming more popular with new direct foreign investments from Western European countries, so we predict that there will be more and more projects of this kind in the future. As we are partly stepping foot into the REHAU project, with our responsibility to choose the architects and to figure out some of the commercial terms, we will be open to discussion when it comes to things like fixed rental rates and a novelty in our market – fixed yields.”

In the initial stage of the project, the Klaipeda FEZ plans a 17,475 square meter factory, which could be expanded in the future. The project will be developed in a 4.4 ha space, with 1,500 square space dedicated to offices, employee and laboratory spaces, 4,275 square meters for warehousing, and 11,700 square meters to the manufacturing floor. Further into the future, the chosen developer would have the opportunity to form a 10 ha industrial park with a potential area of 50,000 square meters, neighboring REHAU.