The draw of the downtown
Lublin Plaza, Platan Shopping Center, Rybnik Plaza, and Forum Gliwice all have one thing in common. They are all new projects being developed in the hearts of medium-sized cities. Specialists agree this is a new trend connected with the development of Polish customers. "We started at the point where consumers bought mainly because of need, and now we are at the point when they buy what they want, and are rapidly going towards impulse pleasure purchases," says the general director of Apsys, Stephen Pragnell. Apsys is the firm behind the Manufaktura center in Łódź.
The trend of shopping centers coming to city centers is mostly visible in the Silesian region, where initially investors concentrated on the suburbs, and built their first centers, with a hypermarket accompanied by a smaller shopping gallery. Now, with projects such as Forum Gliwice, Rybnik Plaza, or Plac Kościuszki in Bytom, retail investors are now flocking back to the city centers, and there are concerns about the impact of such ventures.
A lease of life
Unsurprisingly, agents are very much in favor of the trend. "I quite like the idea of city-center retail development because it brings life to the city center," says the managing director at DTZ, Alan Colquhoun. He stresses the importance of such projects in the Silesia region, where a lot of city centers are run down or depressed, and the new retail projects in the centers are most often revitalization projects, such as Braaten and Pedersen's development in Bytom, which aims to revitalize an area of 10,000 sqm on Plac Kościuszki with a modern multi-function mall.
"Unfortunately, due to the recent history there are very few Polish cities that really have city centers. Some of them have a really beautiful rynek [market square], but it does not go much further than that," says Stephen Pragnell, arguing that these new projects are often beneficial for a city's architecture and cultural identity.
Beauty, in this respect, is in the eye of the beholder. "The investment process happens separately from the design and city planning processes. It is the market rights that matter," says Jan Kubec, an architect from the Gliwice-based architectural studio, Rar-2. He complains about cities' planning policies being soft. Very often investment projects are being developed in conflict with the initial spatial plans, because towns yield to investors who can create new jobs and bring money into a town.
"Cities need city managers, the same as shopping-centers need pro-active managers," responds Apsys' Pragnell. "There has to be a lot of work done by the city itself in collaboration with developers. Complementary offers are needed to enrich and perpetuate city life."
Positive attitude
At the same time, Kubec stresses that architects have to come to terms with what is happening and take a positive attitude. He says shopping centers, or multi-function malls, give people a sense of security and relaxation, especially during the months of the year when Poland has bad rainy weather and the streets are empty. Also, some architects are in favor of regenerative projects, which employ traditional local elements and make the new developments friendlier for local people and the environment. Two leading examples of this in Poland are Stary Browar in Poznań, which is a completely Polish investment, and Apsys' Manufaktura in Łódź. In Silesia, one project has been developed on the site of a previous coal mine (Silesia City Center) and another in an old brewery (Focus Park Rybnik).
Rybnik is a special case when it comes to the concentration of retail space in the city center. Plaza Centers is building a shopping and leisure center of 40,000 sqm, whereas Parkridge CE Retail is developing its Focus Park Rybnik of a similar size. The obvious question is can Rybnik, with a population of 150,000 that is already served by several super- and hypermarkets, really absorb such a large amount of new retail space?
"I think that this is quite daring of the projects. Whether they are successful depends on the fact if they manage to get tenants to enter both centers," says Anna Wysocka, the head of retail at CB Richard Ellis. "In a highly competitive situation like that you get an element of movement of tenants. The consumers are the ones who will vote with their wallets. I would rather see two modern centrally located shopping centers in competition than two hypermarkets box on the edge of town on opposite sides of the same main road," Colquhoun says.
A local revolt
Whether these large schemes are going to kill the local, smaller retailers is another issue. Rybnik, like a few other towns invaded by shopping malls, has a well-developed network of smaller stores located in tenement houses in the center, which are an integral part of the town. Pragnell does not seem to see a problem here. On the contrary, he believes this situation will force local retailers to become more competitive.
"We have to bring all important retail elements to the city center," he says, complaining about the smaller retailers' unwillingness to adapt to clients' needs, such as longer opening hours on Saturdays. "Low-cost airlines put all of the major cities in Poland within easy reach of the majority of the cities of Europe," he says, "so there are wealthier foreigners coming to discover the country and ready to spend money." But when they come for just a weekend, they have limited shopping options.
The central shopping and leisure centers differ in many aspects from the peripheral ones. "City-center projects are typically more prestigious, with a different profile. The tenant and brand mix is more city center-like. Shopping galleries dominate in the central projects whereas in the suburbs it is mainly supermarkets that occupy the largest space," said Wysocka. From the architectural side, "they have to be identifiable by the community. Local people want to have a sense of belonging to a project," Pragnell says.
An investment in a city-center retail project is considered more profitable, thanks to the wide scope of potential customers, from the city, the suburbs and neighboring cities, strong retailers and higher rents, but it needs more initial capital. "It has to be remembered that building in the center is more costly than in green fields. Also the process of integrating land is expensive. Often central projects involve the revitalization of a city, which increases costs," explains Wysocka.
