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“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.

In the western part of Belgrade, Serbia, BIG CEE is developing a unique multiuse concept. The project, totaling 105,300 sq m, comprises a residential area that includes nearly 1000 apartments, an office building, and a retail area. With this project, BIG CEE works towards a positive development boost for the entire area.

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.

Ian Sandford, President of Eurofund Group, creates places that combine shopping, gastronomy, and leisure, ensuring that everyone finds a reason to go to a center every day. He coined the term “shopping resort” as a result. After numerous very successful projects, particularly with Puerto Venecia in Spain and Ubbo in Lisbon, he is now bringing his idea of a shopping resort to the Rhein-Ruhr Zentrum in Germany. In this interview, he explains what managers can learn from goldfish and why courage is more crucial than ever. He also shares his plans for the Rhein-Ruhr Zentrum and his other assets.

Bratislava’s dynamic development and rapidly-changing panorama reflect vibrant growth – and nowhere more so than the popular Eurovea area between Apollo Bridge and Old Bridge. Eurovea City is fast becoming the city’s best location for working, living, and relaxing, and that’s where developer JTRE is building the Ganz House boutique project.

“We are all aware of the seismic changes in the retail landscape in recent years that have affected both owners and occupiers”, says Chris Fleetwood, Deputy COO Real Estate at Redevco. Therefore, a combination of macroeconomic events, higher-for-longer interest rates and inflation, increased consumer awareness of their own environmental footprints and values, and the emergence of transformative technologies have created an ever more competitive environment.

The secret to a thriving retail destination lies in the art of curating a unique combination of retailers set against aesthetic backdrops with a blend of loyal customers, brands, and events that consistently attract new visitors. This is no easy feat in the competitive European market. However, The Playce at Potsdamer Platz, located in central Berlin, has emerged as a place of “firsts” for the city, Germany, and Europe.

True retail experience represents a major opportunity to inspire and retain customers when they visit a store – perhaps the only opportunity, says Dr. Johannes Berentzen, Managing Director of retail consultancy BBE. Yet, how can experience and, by extension, success be measured? In an interview with ACROSS, the strategy consultant talks, among other things, about how and why we need to rethink space in brick-and-mortar retail, which key figures we should question, and what role technology plays in the process. The underlying challenge: The successful implementation of good ideas requires creativity, entrepreneurial courage, and the necessary funds.

Breuninger has been pursuing a consistent omnichannel approach since 2008. Ideally, customers should feel no difference between the channels. At the same time, the openings in Munich and Hamburg are a clear statement in favor of brick-and-mortar retail. ACROSS spoke with Alexander Entov, Managing Director of Breuninger’s Department Store in Munich, about what positive experiences “made by Breuninger” look like, why there should be no separation between the offline and online worlds, and why customer feedback is ultimately the most important factor.

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.

Utopian Hours, taking place 18-20 October in Turin, Italy, is a three-day international event organized by urban knowledge agency Stratosferica, showcasing and discussing new concepts and inviting guests and audiences to suggest a new way of conceiving human evolution. Starting from the first edition in 2017, the festival aims to give for the eighth time a voice to the people behind these changes: City makers, activists, architects, and innovators share their experiences and stimulate new visions for the future and concepts of cities. ACROSS spoke to Daniele Vaccai, Project Developer at Stratosferica, about the festival, its program, and speakers.

At the end of July, Austria’s market-leading shopping center operator SES and Vinzenz Gruppe Service, an expert in health parks, signed a partnership agreement to jointly develop long-term health centers at selected SES shopping locations and thus strengthen regional healthcare provision in the long term.

Parndorf is a great example of how tourism is increasingly linked to shopping. This summer, Designer Outlet Parndorf will again come up with special campaigns and attractions to create a special summer vacation feeling for the whole family. Mario Schwann, General Manager of Designer Outlet Parndorf, expects the record year 2023 to be outperformed again, with strong tourism figures from Austria, cross borders and the EU contributing to this – Non-EU-tourism performance is also showing a positive trend.

The commercial benefits of accommodating multiple uses in one development are clear: If the offer and environment are tailored correctly, footfall – and therefore turnover and rents – can be increased. Nevertheless, there is a great reluctance to create true mixed-use developments due to the inability to truly understand the different requirements of different user groups, according to a joint report by Pragma and Benoy.