Shopping malls focus on renovations and extensions

With more than 8,000 participants (a slight increase compared to last year according to the organizers), 700 exhibitors, the Mapic, the international trade show that opened yesterday in Cannes, continues to attract developers, brands, developers and other public actors in a commercial real estate market (shopping malls, retail parks, etc.) yet matured in France. It must be said that commercial real estate remains a very popular asset for investors and the sector is going through many developments, including first of all the refurbishment of existing equipment. “The commercial density, the new expectations of consumers, the need to reprocess city entrances force operators to play the card of renovation or extension of equipment rather than the creation ex-nihilo of new commercial zones” stresses Matthieu Gueugnier, general manager of the real estate Heritage – Commerce. “We have entered much shorter renovation cycles to renew our offer and better integrate our centres in urban areas that are also changing,” confirms Dominique Hautbois, director of extensions and renovations france shopping centres at Unibail-Rodamco.

The station market

This European commercial real estate group is currently investing 230 million euros in the extension-renovation entrusted to Jean-Paul Viguier de Carré-Sénart created in 2002 in the new city of Senart and will have spent 250 million euros on successive renovations of Parly 2, the historic shopping center of western Paris. At AltareaCogedim, the third largest property behind Unibail-Rodmanco and Klepierre, the focus is on an all-round strategy, focused solely on metropolises: the purchase of existing shopping centres such as Cap 3000 in Saint-Laurent-du-Var, where the group is currently investing 400 million euros to increase the surface of this other historic shopping centre to 135,000 square metres; development of new centres that closely combine shops and leisure activities such as Jean-Michel Wilmotte’s “Avenue83” on the outskirts of Toulon; the creation of new urban neighbourhoods where commercial projects are linked to other functions. Example: Bobigny-La Place where Altarea Cogedim has just won a 100,000 m2 mixed project that will house housing, offices, commercial space in place of the current Bobigny 2 shopping centre. “We are very interested in the station markets where attractive commercial areas can emerge. SNCF Real Estate has also begun to enhance its land rights around the stations,” says Nathalie Bardin, communications director of Altarea Cogedim. For example, the group intervenes on the commercial restructuring of the Paris-Montparnasse and Paris-Austerlitz stations.

Job pressure

In the background still points to the debate on the race for new square metres and the weakening of the centres of small and medium-sized cities, in conjunction with the recent report by the IGF and the CGEDD. “You have to have the courage of regulation and know how to limit the issuance of authorizations,” notes Laurent Hénart, the mayor of Nancy. The latter has made the establishment of shops in downtown Nancy his workhorse and wants to make it emerge “the first commercial hub of the metropolis”. “We are bringing in our Shem to acquire land and offer opportunities to locate in remarkable buildings,” he explains. Nancy is also developing public-private partnership. In the shopping centre Saint Sebastian renovated by Hammerson was installed a play library, managed by the public. But for elected officials, it is not always easy to say no to new settlements, in the face of investment and job creation in their territories. In the Alpes-Maritimes, major commercial projects have accumulated in recent years (Cap 3000, Polygone Riviera, Nice One on the edge of the Allianz Riviera and tomorrow Ikea) and the flow of authorizations is not stopped: at the entrance of Sophia Antipolis, the Phalsbourg Company obtained its CDAC for a new operation of 100,000 m2 in the ZAC of Clausonnes. Read the article here