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PROJECTS, TRENDS AND STRATEGIES

Hamburg’s iconic Mönckebergstrasse is set to welcome a transformative development project: Elisen Palais will breathe new life into a historic site once home to the renowned C&A building. This ambitious project seeks to create a climate-neutral, mixed-use property while paying homage to the architectural history of the area, as Nikolas Bosnić, Head of Development Redevco DACH, explains.

NEPI Rockcastle’s strong net operating income (NOI) growth of 13.5% in the first half of 2024 allowed the company to raise its forecast for full-year distributable earnings per share. Justyna Bartosz, the Group’s Head of Leasing, explains what makes the CEE’s retail and consumer world tick and why it is that NEPI Rockcastle and its tenants can’t pay enough attention to the buzzwords: experience, community building, and authenticity.

A good ten years after its opening, Skyline Plaza in Frankfurt am Main, which is jointly owned by Allianz and ECE, is receiving more than 35 million euros for an extensive modernization program. With new tenants and concepts, a revised design and numerous additional offers and services, it is being comprehensively prepared for the future.

LATEST TRENDS IN ASSET AND CENTER MANAGEMENT

Retail parks have established themselves as one of the most stable asset classes in the retail sector in recent years. Making clever adjustments to the tenant mix ensures both the security and long-term development of a retail property. That fact is clearly demonstrated by a number of assets in MEC’s portfolio, in particular, by the Dreieich Nordpark case study, as Christian Thiele, Head of Leasing Management at MEC, explains.

“Across all markets, we are seeing that retail has remained a resilient and thriving sector,” explains Cristina Santos, Executive Director Property Management at Sonae Sierra. More than almost any other European company, Sonae Sierra is strategically diversified across several regions and adapts to the specific requirements of each. The company has extensive experience with its own properties and has increasingly used that knowledge as a cornerstone of its approach to manage third-party properties.

Retail is polarizing towards the absolute top locations, among them metropolitan locations, and A-cities. There are many cases proving this but there are also exceptions – and not just any, but successful exceptions. The recent DeepTalk online-discussion took a closer look at one such exception and looked a little behind the letting and positioning strategies of the Europa-Galerie Saarbrücken in Germany, one of the outstanding best-practice examples.

DEVELOPMENTS AND TRENDS IN THE OUTLET INDUSTRY

VIA Outlets enters the final weeks of 2024 at the MAPIC trade show in Cannes with leasing demand remaining strong and a slate of major expansion and refurbishment projects gathering pace. The major extension of VIA Outlets’ Sevilla Fashion Outlet in southern Spain, which opened towards the end of last year, also qualified as a finalist in the ‘Best Refurbishment and Expansion Project’ category of the prestigious MAPIC Awards 2024, among a field of 154 applications.

With the FREY Group as a new financially strong property partner providing robust support, ROS Retail Outlet Shopping is setting the stage for further growth and enhanced premium outlet shopping destinations across Europe. Major expansions at four centers and two new developments are set to be completed within two years.

Fashion House Group is the only outlet operator in Romania, and it benefits from a growing interest in international brands in Southeast Europe. In this interview with ACROSS, Brendon O’Reilly, Managing Director of Fashion House Group, explains how he wants to grow and expand with these brands.

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STRATEGIES OF RETAILERS

Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW) is once again strengthening the attractiveness of the shopping and leisure destination in North Rhine-Westphalia: for this purpose, rental areas of anchor partners are being comprehensively expanded to establish flagship formats and, at the same time, new brands are being brought on board to further diversify the product range at the center. In this context, Westfield Centro is also announcing several market entries in Germany. A number of the new partners are also placing a particular focus on sustainability in their business model.

The European outlet market is saturated; there are only a few white spaces. Rioja Estates is one of the most experienced European pre-developers and, as such, the first authority to decide whether a location can work. Together with ACROSS publisher Reinhard Winiwarter, Giles Membrey examines the outlet market in 2024 and explains why all players should urgently address technology, which markets in Europe still have potential, and how his company’s focus areas are changing.

LATEST TRENDS

Thanks to their diverse mix of tenants and sectors, today’s shopping centers are more than just places to go shopping: They’re experience destinations and community hubs that enjoy a great deal of popularity – as illustrated by ECE Marketplaces’ latest success figures. Entertainment concepts have increasingly become attractive complements to and additional drawing cards for the respective locations, as current ECE center portfolio examples show.

“It’s a fair question these days in lots of Western countries, Europe first and foremost. Running a restaurant in Europe requires a more nuanced approach than simply focusing on high revenue figures,” shares Will Odwarka, Founder and CEO of Dubai-based firm Heartatwork Hospitality Consulting in his latest “F&B Insights” column. “The notion that success is guaranteed by sheer volume is misleading, as the current challenges facing the industry demand a deeper understanding and strategic planning,” he explains. Opening a restaurant in Western Europe may seem daunting to some, but it is essential to address the underlying issues that have been exacerbated by the recent global pandemic.

Like no other German shopping center, “The Playce” at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin is a shopping and cultural destination that focuses on food and beverage, leisure, and retail stores that are new to Berlin or unique in their concepts. One and a half years after its opening, The Playce is now 96 percent leased. ACROSS discusses why now is the best time to be part of the project with Roger Goyk, Director of Retail Brookfield Properties, and Jonathan Doughty, Special Project Manager at ECE.

RETAIL TECHNOLOGY

Hardly any other word has characterized the real estate industry lately as much as transformation. It describes many different aspects and involves all stakeholders. However, one area that is often neglected is community building. We are ignoring the most critical group: the users and consumers. David Fuller-Watts, CEO of Mallcomm, explains in this interview what community building should stand for today and what the real estate industry, including proptech, needs to do to serve their communities’ changing needs.

Why do we visit shopping centers? Is it merely for shopping, or are we seeking entertainment, a place to meet, or perhaps all of these experiences combined? Despite the diverse reasons that draw us to shopping centers, one expectation remains consistent across all visits: the demand for quality.

This year´s SusHi Tech Tokyo 2024 aimed at fostering cooperation between Japan and Finland by providing a platform for tech companies of both countries to promote sustainability technology and ESG principles. Markus Porvari, President and CEO of HyperIn, represented the company as a keynote speaker at the conference. HyperIn has demonstrated how a startup can successfully grow into a thriving enterprise, showcasing real cases of how some of the leading companies in the Nordics are succeeding with sustainable technology.

“Octopus is not just creating technology; we are building an entire ecosystem that mirrors the online world’s interactivity in the physical world, all centered around our screens and the Octopus app. We are crafting an environment where digital engagement is as natural and intuitive as using a smartphone or computer,” explains Emre Yıldız, CEO and Founder of Octopus, in his interview with ACROSS.

PLANS OF INVESTORS AND OWNERS

NEPI Rockcastle’s strong net operating income (NOI) growth of 13.5% in the first half of 2024 allowed the company to raise its forecast for full-year distributable earnings per share. Justyna Bartosz, the Group’s Head of Leasing, explains what makes the CEE’s retail and consumer world tick and why it is that NEPI Rockcastle and its tenants can’t pay enough attention to the buzzwords: experience, community building, and authenticity.

The acquisition of the leading shopping mall in Novi Sad for 177 million euros by BIG CEE marked Serbia´s largest retail transaction ever. Promenada, one of the strongest malls in the country, features many international brands, a 100% occupancy rate, and more than 10 million visitors annually.

After the collapse of a previous deal last year, the Swiss luxury goods group Richemont has found in Mytheresa a new buyer for its online fashion and accessories business Yoox-Net-a-Porter (YNAP).