A Czech Developer Is Putting 324 Flats and a 152-Room Hotel on Budapest's Old Szikra Print Site
Czech developer UDI Group has topped out Parkside Residence in Budapest's 13th district: 324 flats and a 152-room Staybridge Suites on a long-idle site.
The Czech developer UDI Group has taken its Parkside Residence scheme in Budapest's 13th district to full structural height, on a 43,650-square-metre plot that has sat unused for more than fifteen years. The project, reported on 3 September, combines 324 apartments with a 152-room four-star hotel — the developer's first in Hungary.
What is being built
The site is the former Szikra printing works, bounded by Esztergomi út, Visegrádi utca, Süllő utca and Zsilip utca, next to Vizafogó park. Alongside the 324 flats there are 364 parking spaces, 215 storage units and nine retail units. Roughly 4,800 square metres are given over to green space, including a landscaped internal garden of about 2,000 square metres. A3 Építész Iroda designed the scheme and Bernecker Zrt. is the general contractor; the topping-out ceremony was held in July 2026, with facade, mechanical and interior fit-out still ahead.
The hotel is the part worth noticing
The 152 rooms will run as a Staybridge Suites, operated by Mogotel Hotel Group under IHG Hotels & Resorts. Staybridge is an extended-stay brand rather than a conventional city hotel, which places its 152 rooms somewhere between the hospitality and long-let markets. Putting one inside a residential scheme, sharing a site with 324 flats, is a bet that the district's demand base includes people staying for weeks rather than nights — and it puts a block of professionally managed medium-term accommodation directly alongside the private rental stock the flats will feed.
Specification aimed at running costs
The apartments target an A+ energy rating using heat-pump-based ceiling heating and cooling, with rainwater harvesting for irrigation and electric-vehicle charging infrastructure on site. The developer has not disclosed an investment figure or a handover date. Specification of this kind carries a build cost that ends up in the asking price, which is the relevant point for a buyer comparing new build against the existing stock.
The market it will complete into
Glopra's data puts Budapest at $4,376 per square metre, with prices up 8.3% over the past twelve months in forint terms and 17.4% measured in dollars — the gap is the currency, not the bricks. Gross rental yield in the city stands at 4.63%, below the Hungarian national figure of 4.69% despite prices roughly double the national average of $2,150 per square metre. Our bubble-risk score for Budapest is 64 out of 100, in the elevated band.
The timing risk is straightforward and worth stating plainly: 324 units arriving together in one district is a meaningful local supply event, and the interval between topping out and handover is precisely the period over which a developer has no ability to react to pricing. Fifteen years of an empty industrial plot becoming housing is unambiguously good for the city. Whether it is good for the vendor depends on where Budapest pricing sits when the fit-out finishes.
Sources: Portfolio.hu, 3 Sep 2026 https://www.portfolio.hu/ingatlan/20260903/kulfoldi-oriasberuhazas-hoz-uj-lakasokat-szallodat-es-parkot-a-fovaros-15-eve-kihasznalatlan-teruletere-860198; Magyar Építők, 3 Sep 2026 https://magyarepitok.hu/mi-epul/2026/09/uj-varosi-komplexum-szuletik-a-szikra-nyomda-helyen-mar-elerte-legmagasabb-pontjat-a-parkside-residence