Re-Activation of Vacant Retail Spaces - Tamini - 2018

SPRINGER BRIEFS IN APPLIED SCIENCES AND
TECHNOLOGY  POLIMI SPRINGER BRIEFS
Luca Tamini
Re-activation
of Vacant Retail
Spaces
Strategies, Policies
and Guidelines
123
SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences
and Technology
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Luca Tamini
Re-activation of Vacant
Retail Spaces
Strategies, Policies and Guidelines
123
Luca Tamini
Department of Architecture and Urban
Studies
Politecnico di Milano
Milan
Italy
ISSN 2191-530X ISSN 2191-5318 (electronic)

SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology
ISSN 2282-2577 ISSN 2282-2585 (electronic)
PoliMI SpringerBriefs
ISBN 978-3-319-70871-3 ISBN 978-3-319-70872-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70872-0
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© The Author(s) 2018

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Preface
Retail has undergone deep structural and spatial evolutions throughout the decades,
with dramatic and radical consequences in terms of functional concentration,
attractiveness, scale and location of stores. In the most recent period, these
long-standing trends have been further exacerbated by the stunning development
of the Internet and related e-commerce practices, together with the effects of more
than 10 years of economic crisis. Consumer behaviours and retail strategies have
changed dramatically, and the evidences of this process are clear: inner-city areas
have become less central to people’s lives, the economic impact of traditional
businesses is decreasing and shopping malls and big-box stores are also falling into
decay.
Although more advanced in the US, the weakening of urban retail systems—up
to desertification—is a widespread phenomenon in many European cities and
regions, and Italy makes no exception. The formerly dynamic, both urban and
suburban, spaces once acting as magnets for a diversified range of activities and
user inflows are now dotted with vacant units gradually losing commercial attrac-
tiveness. The impact of this trend exceeds a sectoral dimension and bears several
social and economic costs, in terms of loss of new business opportunities, revenues
and employment for both SMEs and local branches of transnational companies.
Therefore, this issue represents an important factor affecting the quality of life of
users and consumers, as well as the vibrancy of local economies.
Public authorities are asked to tackle this topic and to set up actions and policies
meant to revitalize the sector, and, as a result, they must consider the territorial role
of trading activities, as well as their relevance for local and regional development.
In fact, demalling and other actions aimed to face the shrinking of urban retail
systems have become a new task for urban planning in those areas where public and
private actors need support in their effort to redevelop vacant malls, big-box and
high-street stores. This study is partially inspired by the outcomes of a research
project titled Analisi delle criticità e delle opportunità di sviluppo del fenomeno
della dismissione commerciale ai fini dell’attrattività urbana, developed by the
Urb&Com Lab (Department of Architecture and Urban Studies/DAStU, Politecnico
di Milano) and supported by Éupolis Lombardia, the Lombardy Region Institute for
v
vi Preface
Research, Statistics and Training.1 The aims of the research are as follows:
(i) framing the multidimensional aspects of the problem, and (ii) showing that there
are many different approaches to the issue, depending on the socio-economic and
institutional context, the nature of the involved actors (private or public) and their
specific goals.
The causes of the weakening of local retail systems are twofold: on the one hand,
there are specific conditions for every single case, such as the relationship with the
context, the saturation of markets (due to horizontal competition among operators,
or to format obsolescence) and the decrease in the offer quality. On the other hand,
some transversal factors must be taken into account, including the economic crisis
and other current global trends, changes in the customers’ behaviours (such as the
emerging sharing economy and the decrease of consumption) and competition
between formats and among different shopping practices (e.g. traditional purchase
vs. e-commerce). In the first part of this work, all the above-mentioned factors are
examined, and the overall investigation perimeter is drawn.
The book also aims to be an operative tool and a useful contribution to the
current debate on how to deal with the issue of reactivating local economies.
A particular focus is devoted to some international policies, programmes and
actions implemented during the last years. The first chapter identifies a series of
strategies after drawing them from some significant case studies located in France,
Spain, UK, Germany and USA. The focus on the Italian case, in the second chapter,
allows pointing out processes, instruments and methodologies within a set of cases
in which the author was involved as a technical consultant to policymakers and
institutional actors during the last 10 years. These direct experiences have served as
a basis for collecting and implementing the tools and proposals for developing
public and private strategies aimed at reactivating retail areas (third chapter), with
expected positive consequences on the vitality of local economies. Indeed, the
publication represents a sort of original and innovative handbook for an unexplored
field, which brings together economic and spatial elements and which can be used
by scholars and students, as well as by technicians and public institutions.
Milan, Italy Luca Tamini
1
Research Project (March 2015): Attuazione strategie europee 2014/2020: individuazione priorità
e linee di azione ed evento di confronto sulle tematiche del commercio tra le Regioni dei Quattro
motori. Research team: Luca Tamini (coord.), Giorgio Limonta, Mario Paris, Silvia Carena,
Agathe Dessuges, Vittoria Rossi, with Luca Zanderighi (Department of Economics, Management,
and Quantitative Methods, University of Milan).
Contents
1 Re-activation Strategies, Experiences from Europe and USA ...... 1

1.1 Before the Dismantling: Facing Threats and Weaknesses . ...... 3
1.1.1 French Policies Against Retail Desertification . . . . ...... 3
1.2 During the Process: Supporting, Integrating
and Repositioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...... 5
1.2.1 The EPARECA Case: The Lucien Sampaix
Shopping Mall, Bagnolet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...... 5
1.3 Demalling: How to Re-activate Big-Boxes and Urban
Retail Districts? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...... 9
1.3.1 Dismantled Big Boxes: Governance and Tools
in U.S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...... 9
1.3.2 The Vital’ Quartier Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...... 13
1.3.3 An Innovative Legal Tool: Taxes on Closed Down
Retail Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...... 22
1.4 Reflecting on Cases: Strategies, Actors and Proposals . . . . ...... 23
1.4.1 From Case Studies to Policy Innovation . . . . . . . . ...... 24
Appendix: Planned Centres: Medium and Large Scale
Retail Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...... 29
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...... 34
2 What Future for Vacant Retail Spaces? Recent Experiences
in Italy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...... 37
2.1 Identifying an Existing and Pervasive Phenomenon:
Dimensions, Geographies and Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...... 37
2.2 Re-thinking Urban Retail Systems and Sub-urban
Dead Malls: Responsive Strategies for Retail Vacancy . . . ...... 41
2.2.1 The Reuse of Large Urban Buildings . . . . . . . . . . ...... 41
2.2.2 Transformation of the Medium- and Large-Size
Extra-Urban Containers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...... 52
vii
viii Contents
2.3 Recent Experiences: From Practices to an Integrated

Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....... 59
2.3.1 Public Policies Supporting Urban Retail System:
Urban Retail District . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
2.3.2 (Oriented) Policies for Urban Retail Systems . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3 Re-activating Retail Spaces: A Toolbox for Strategies,
Policies and Pilot Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 77
3.1 Innovating the Planning, Spatial and Regulative Approaches
to Retail Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 77
3.2 Working on Retail, Re-activating the City: A Toolbox
for Public and Private Actors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 87
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 92
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Chapter 1
Re-activation Strategies, Experiences
from Europe and USA
Abstract The chapter contains a sort of inventory of experiences in which urban

and suburban retail weakening is contrasted and the re-activation of its spaces is
sought. The cases are located in both Europe and the US and vary according to the
moment of the process they involve. For each case, we introduce the specific
situation/context and provide one or two examples that illustrate the ongoing
dynamics, and the potential solutions to them. Several situations are described, in
order to show the variety of approaches and proposals and, secondly, to compare
the cases. For this purpose, the inventory is followed by a matrix aiming both to
relate the different strategies to each other and to point out some innovative ways
private operators and public bodies can resort to in order to develop their actions
and programs.
An analysis of international best practices is fundamental to identify suitable active

policies designed to control and prevent retail dismantling, in so far as it supplies a
wide-ranging overview of such phenomena and offers examples, which can be used
as models. Local areas are in great need of such work but town planning regulations
have not yet codified successful response paradigms. The case review should be
interpreted in this way and consequently comparison between national and inter-
national cases should not be forced, as these are often linked to issues of scale and
settlement pattern, as well as cultural and economic contexts which vary widely. On
the contrary, the established goal is to illustrate the point in the retail desertification
process on which it is possible to intervene with measures and policies, as well as
the potential outcomes, rather than analysing specific concrete circumstances. For
this reason, it is also important to introduce the variable “time” and the moment at
which each strategy should be applied. Some of the collected experiences should
take place before the process of dismantling, when the attractiveness of the retail
activity is diminishing, like in the cases of refurbishment of urban big-boxes in
Germany, developed while the structure is still working. Other strategies should be
applied when several vacancies dotted the retail systems, like in Vital’quartier
(Paris) or Barcelona PECAB. Finally, the publication proposes some ideas related
© The Author(s) 2018 1

L. Tamini, Re-activation of Vacant Retail Spaces, PoliMI SpringerBriefs,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70872-0_1
2 1 Re-activation Strategies, Experiences from Europe and USA
to the re-activation of urban and suburban retail spaces (demalling), collecting some
example of re-functionalization of these volumes (from Italy or USA).
The choice of study cases is therefore as relevant as focusing on each single
process. Best practice and elements, which could potentially be integrated into
future public policies, aimed at preventing retail desertification phenomena, will be
highlighted.
This study involves an in-depth analysis of this subject in five European
countries and in the United States, and in-depth case studies linked to intervention
and action on the big boxes of large scale retail channel or local retail. The fol-
lowing are of special note:
• France: in-depth study of the outcomes of the most advanced policies against the
dismantling of the retail sector, developed from 1973 onwards, with specific
measures, such as the setting up of the EPARECA institution (and the outcomes
on the Lucien Sampaix shopping mall in Bagnolet) on the one hand; and the
case of the Vital’Quartier programme in Paris on the other (Apur and Semaest
2013; Dessuges 2013; Fleury 2010; IAU 2013).
• Spain; analysis of the Avenida M40 shopping mall and Parque Warner Madrid
Resort y Parks that are both located within the Madrid metropolitan area on the
big box store and need intervention on retail and tertiary sector structures, versus
the Plan Especial de Equipamiento Comercial de la Ciudad de Barcelona and
Plan Local de Equipamiento Comercial de Zaragoza that are two strategic and
planning tools, in which the cities aims to equip themselves with guideline
documents to strengthen and modernise the respective local retail areas (Ayto
Barcelona 2011; Ayto Zaragoza 2009; Sectores D. B. K. 2014).
• United Kingdom: study of the Liverpool One Urban Regeneration Project,
where retail was used as a vehicle and driving force for the recovery of its
industrial port (BDP 2009; Drivers Jonas Deloitte 2012; University of Liverpool
2008), together with the re-launch of Brixton Village in Lambeth town in
London’s southern quarter (English Heritage 2013; Fluid 2014; Hine 2010;
Lambeth Municipality 2014; Lambeth Planning Division 2012; NLP 2012).
• Germany: focus on the potential role of shopkeepers themselves, since in the
two presented cases (the Sophienhof shopping mall in Kiel, and the Forum
Steglitz shopping mall in Berlin), shopkeepers activated action on still operative
structures, that were subsequently considered obsolete or unable to respond to
market demands. These case studies show that such choices have increased the
attractiveness of the aggregates both to consumers and potential new
investors (DTZ 2011; Union Imm. 2013).
• United States of America: considerations on the crisis of the shopping mall
format, especially in its suburban locations, concluding with a presentation on
the Shannon Mall-Union Station Mall re-use case study in Union City, Atlanta
GA(Congress for the New Urbanism 2005; Congress for the New Urbanism and
PrincewaterhouseCoopers 2001a, b; McAuliffe and LEED AP 2010; PBSJ
2001; Perry 2001; Rossi 2015; Sobel et al. 2002; Tunnell-Spangler-Walsh and
Associates 2003; Union City 2010, 2013).
1.1 Before the Dismantling: Facing Threats and Weaknesses 3
1.1 Before the Dismantling: Facing Threats

and Weaknesses
1.1.1 French Policies Against Retail Desertification
Many public bodies have been set up in France to monitor, understand and act on
retail. Whilst these are based on town planning and economic type expertise, the
monitoring tools1 used consider almost exclusively the consequences for the
economy as a whole, giving no importance to the urban effects,2 while the town
planning measures dealing with this sector are introduced via PLU town plans3 and/
or SCoT regional plans4 and/or town council SDCs.5
From the point of view of commercial trends, it should be noted that the
American mall model developed immediately after World War Two on the French
territory. The format was introduced by Edouard Leclerc with the first discount
supermarket opened in Landerneau in 1949. It was a great success and this new
model later spread to the majority of French outlying urban districts. To prevent
uncontrolled development of this new retail model the state decided to develop
tools to monitor retail businesses with the aim of counteracting their negative effects
on local economy in the town centres.
On 27th December 1973, Law Royer decreed that a permit from the Commission
Départementale d’Urbanisme Commercial (CDUC)6 was required prior to building
any retail outlet larger than 1000 m2 in size. The purpose of this law was to
safeguard town centre shops.
Public powers guarantee that the expansion of retail and artisanship will safeguard the
development of all business forms both independent, group or integrated, ensuring that
uncontrolled growth in new forms of distribution does not squeeze out small business,
waste retail surfaces or compromise employment.7
1
These documents often take the form of town planning and building regulations drawn up from
local studies carried out by a number of provincial and/or local council level bodies.
2
A phenomenon previously identified by René Péron, La fin des vitrines, des temples de la
consommation aux usines à vendre, éditions de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan, 1993.
3
Plan Local d’Urbanisme is the equivalent of Italian town plans.
4
Schéma de COhérence Territoriale [regional plans]. The goal is coherence between the various
town council town plans and the development of town planning concepts and guidelines, which
will then take precedence over the town regulations. They are made up of agglomerations of town
councils.
5
Schéma de Développement Commercial [retail development plans]. The goal is to set the foun-
dations for commercial town planning designed to provide guidelines for new retail outlets.
6
Provincial Commercial Town planning Commission.
7
“Les pouvoirs publics veillent à ce que l’essor du commerce et de l’artisanat permette l’expansion
de toutes les formes d’entreprises, indépendantes, groupées ou intégrées, en évitant qu’une
croissance désordonnée des nouvelles formes de distribution ne provoque l’écrasement de la petite
entreprise et le gaspillage des équipements commerciaux et ne soit préjudiciable à l’emploi”, art.1
Legge Royer, 27th Dec. 1973.
The CDUC is composed of twenty members8:

• 9 mayors including the mayor of the town in which the permit has been applied
for;
• 9 delegates from retail activities and craftsman business;
• 2 delegates from consumer rights associations.
Other delegates take part without having the right to vote, these are the prefect and
mayors from neighbouring town councils, reporting to the town in which a permit
has been applied for.
The CDUC bases its decisions on very precise elements of a prevalently
quantitative type9:
• balanced supply and demand in each business sector within the catchment area;
• medium and large retail shop density in the area of reference;
• the potential effect of the project on the retail and craftsman fabric of the urban
agglomerations in the proximity of the catchment area;
• the employment effect of the project in terms of full time jobs generated, both
permanent and fixed term;
• competitiveness outcomes of the project in the retail and craftsman sectors;
• commitments by the project manager to fund food sector retail outlet creation on
at least 10% of the surface area applied for in zones requiring urban redevel-
opment or rural areas, in which the development of retail activities with a
vending surface area of less than 300 m2 is considered top priority.
All the decisions taken by this commission must refer to the studies of the
Provincial Retail Building Observatory. These policy measures have immediate and
significant impact on the opening of shopping malls in the vicinity of town centres.
This powerful monitoring tool has been modified over the years on a number of
occasions, culminating in Loi Raffarin which transformed the CDUC into
Commission Départementale d’Equipement Commercial (CDEC)10 and in 2000
with the Loi SRU which converted the CDEC into Commission Départementale
d’Aménagement Commercial (CDAC).11
In 1996, for example, the 1000 m2 threshold for retail licences was lowered to
300 m2 and, consequently, all the large scale distribution networks in the town
centres were obliged to apply for permits too. By contrast from 1996 to 2000, when
this legal threshold of 1000 m2 was restored, fewer medium and large-scale retail
businesses were opened.
8
Legifrance.gouv.fr.
9
Raffarin law dating to 5th July 1996, art. 28, legifrance.gouv.fr.
10
Provincial Commercial Building Commission.
11
Provincial Commercial Planning Commission.
1.2 During the Process: Supporting, Integrating and Repositioning 5
1.2 During the Process: Supporting, Integrating

and Repositioning
1.2.1 The EPARECA Case: The Lucien Sampaix Shopping

Mall, Bagnolet
The case of the Lucien Sampaix shopping mall is an opportunity to study the work
of the EPARECA public company,12 which deals specifically with re-launching
abandoned retail big boxes in the outskirts of French towns, as first priority in urban
renewal. The case is an interesting one because the mall is situated in a poor urban
context suffering from serious safety problems.
The socio-economic and regional context
Bagnolet has direct links with Paris on metro line number 3 (last stop Gallieni, close
to Porte de Bagnolet). The town centre shops thus compete with the Parisian retail
fabric. Their main retail customers are local and they supply services and primary
necessities. The Bel-Est shopping mall is at Porte de Bagnolet with 60 shops and a
food store base, an Auchan supermarket. Its client base is not solely local but it also
attracts people living in central Paris, thanks to its proximity to the Gallieni metro
stop and the accessibility and visibility of motorway A3, as well as the Paris
ringroad. Lucien Sampaix shopping mall (Fig. 1.1) is around 1.4 km from this
network of shops, which gives it a powerful competitive edge in the local context
(Table 1.1). Bel-Est is difficult to reach on foot but has local public transport links.
It should be noted, however, that the town’s retail businesses have held out against
the attractions of the shopping mall partly as a result of low vehicle ownership per
person ratios.13 The Paris ringroad passes through Bagnolet. The A3 motorway
divides it in two, making it almost impossible to walk through. A large scale urban
renovation project has been launched to rebuild links between the various quarters
and increase the density of the urban fabric.14
Permit and building process time frame
Reconstruction of the dismantling process:
• 1948–1967: 3800 social housing flats were built in the Malassis quarter.
• 1960s: building of a 1120 m2 supermarket and 16 shops.
12
Établissement Public National d’Aménagement et de Restructuration des Espaces Commerciaux
et Artisanaux: National Public Commercial and Artisan Spaces Planning and Renovation
Institution.
13
One third of those living in Bagnolet town do not own a car (Source: http://www.ville-bagnolet.
fr/).
14
It should be noted that the retail programme is an integral part of a social residence programme:
95% of the town’s housing is social housing (the Malassis quarter has a population of around
5000).
1 – Café, bar and tobacconist 150 m2.

2 – Local association 103 m2.
3 – Chemist 100 m2.
4 – Driving school 30 m2.
5 – Taxiphone 103 m2.
6 – Tailor's shop 38 m2.
7 – Bank 200 m2.
8 – Costume jeweller's 40 m2.
9 – Horsemeat butcher's 65 m2.
10 – Hairdresser's 60 m2.
11 – Ethnic shop 70 m2.
12 – Baker's 100 m2.
13 – Laundry 40 m2.
14 – Hairdresser's 40 m2.
15 – Sandwich bar 110 m2.
16 – Bookshop 110 m2.
17 – Halal supermarket 1,120 m2.
Fig. 1.1 The Lucien Sampaix shopping mall, Bagnolet (F): layout
Table 1.1 The Lucien Sampaix shopping mall, Bagnolet (F): dimensional data
Format Small shops (EdV): 16
Medium sized retail outlets (MSV): 1 supermarket
Surface area covered EdV: 1359 m2
MSV: 1120 m2
Disused surface area EdV: 700 m2
MSV: 1120 m2
Authorised retail Existing:
surface area EdV: 1359 m2
MSV: 800 m2
Project:
EdV: 350 m2
MSV: 300 m2
Tertiary and service sector businesses 1100 m2
Car parking spaces 82
Building permit issue 1960
Closing 1992 closing of the first offices in the area was followed by the first
retail dismantling. The supermarket burnt down in 2007, judicial
liquidation took place in July 2010 for Primeur Land and this was
followed by the closing of many neighbourhood businesses
• 1967–87: building of additional social housing flats in the Malassis quarter and
the creation of the La Noue quarter for 6000 inhabitants.
• 1992: dismantling of retail and tertiary sector.
• 2007: ANRU began an ambitious town redevelopment programme.
• 2007: arson at the Lucien Sampaix supermarket.
• 2010: judicial liquidation and closing of two shops (57% closed).
• 2010–2014: closing of five other small shops (73% closed).
Project time frame:

• April 2010: EPARECA is given the task of renovating the retail fabric by
Bagnolet town council.
• June 2010: studies began.
• December 2011: market study by Pivadis completed.
• September 2012: judicial and real estate study completed.
• 2012–13: retail project integrated into ANRU’s urban renovation project.
• June 2013: project modified.
• Nov–Dec 2013: existing supermarket demolished.
Action planned:
• Road network modification—2014–16.
• Building of an open air market—2015.
• New tertiary and service sector businesses added (medical and social centre,
nursery school, pre-school club) on the ground floor of the new buildings
(2015–16).
• New retail surfaces added (2016–17).
Economic analysis identifies a potential market of around 27 million Euros
which could increase to 34 million as a result of the growth in population density
expected by the time the town redevelopment plan is completed. Recent enquiries
into consumption habits in the quarter have, in fact, shown that an unsatisfied
demand for local retail exists (Fig. 1.2).
Following on from its market study EPARECA identified the type of activities it
considered sustainable:
• medium sized food retail with a surface area of no more than 300/400 m2 (the
hard-discount option was discarded right away);
• neighbourhood businesses; The chemist is in much demand so it is expected to
remain.
Low profitability scenario
High profitability scenario
Project sustainability
threshold
Fig. 1.2 The results of the market study by type of retail activity and profitability scenarios (in
millions of €). Source EPARECA/Pivadis, Dec. 2011
This new retail aggregate will function only if certain factors impact on the
economic sustainability of the new retail system such as:
• visibility;
• the presence of a large distribution network brand supermarket, as a retail
attraction;
• the creation of partnerships with other sectors (tertiary, services);
• the maintenance and growth of the neighbourhood catchment area.
Once the format was established EPARECA studied the new locations of all
businesses and the public space project with ANRU.15
A number of agreements with the town council to sustain retail businesses were
drawn up, especially:
• the setting up of council services (nursery school and pre-school club);
• changes to a public transport bus route;
• the organisation of a weekly open air market in the new square;
• the relocation of the goods loading/unloading area.
Partners
• EPARECA: involved in funding, local diagnosis, work management
• ANRU: involved in funding work
• Bagnolet town council: requested EPARECA’s intervention and will be
involved in investment
• Sequano Aménagement: mixed ownership company16 which owns the shops
• Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations17: partial funding of work
• The state: represented by the prefecture, EPARECA controlling powers,
decision-making powers
• Other partners involved in the social housing renovation project: Sem Pact 93,
Paris Habitat OPH,18 OPH Bagnolet and Association Foncière Logement.
SWOT Analysis
The case main strengths and potential can be summed up as follows:
• Strengths: location of the established urban fabric which guarantees a potentially
extremely large catchment area; a large scale urban renewal project; urban safety
measures; significant public investment; considerable attractiveness due to its
proximity to Paris; limited real estate pressure.
15
Agence Nationale pour la Rénovation Urbaine: National Urban Renewal Body.
16
67.54% public*, 32.46% private**: *province of Seine-Saint-Denis (62.20%)—Aubervilliers,
Blanc-Mesnil, Bobigny, Gagny, Les Lilas, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, Le Pré Saint-Gervais,
Trembay-en-France, Villetaneuse town councils (5.34%); **Caisse des dépôts, Caisse d’Epargne
d’Ile-de-France (15.04%)—OPH de Seine-Saint-Denis, OPH de Bobigny, Logirep (7.93%)—other
private shareholdersi (9.49%).
17
Loan and deposit bank.
18
Office Public de l’Habitat: Public Residential Institute.
• Potential: the urban renewal project links two social housing quarters, identified
as ‘sensitive’, thus increasing town council services and public spaces with the
objective of raising living standards and making the area more attractive. As it is
classified as a ZUS (sensitive urban area) zone shopkeepers opening up retail
outlets receive incentives and both financial and bureaucratic help.
The case weaknesses and threats are, on the other hand, as follows:
• Weaknesses: enclave situation, which blocks the area’s economic development,
a population in financial difficulty with limited buying power, a climate of
insecurity, extremely high levels of competition and a degraded neighbourhood
in both social and town planning terms.
• Threats: still under-assessed to the extent that the negative consequences will
only become apparent when the project is complete: the park built above the A3
motorway to link the two quarters could become the site of clashes and/or illegal
exchange increasing the area’s insecurity and diminishing the power of efforts to
renew the area.
1.3 Demalling: How to Re-activate Big-Boxes and Urban

Retail Districts?
1.3.1 Dismantled Big Boxes: Governance and Tools in U.S.
The dynamics observed in Lombardy and overall Italian context, as well as in

international case studies relating to the planned dismantling of retail units provide
indications for the formulation of a number of useful approaches to managing and
minimising retail closing dynamics.
The first map of potential closings of medium-large retail units (Fig. 1.3)
highlights the fact that today this phenomenon seems to relate above all to medium
sized units (retail area < 2500 m2), although some shopping malls have also begun
facing anchor store dismantling, vacant units, a drop in sales, lower employment
rates, worker dismissals (see shopping malls such as Verola Center and Le Robinie
in Verolanuova BS, Le Acciaierie in Cortenuova BG). In the Italian and Lombard
scenario a first case of demalling has occurred: the former Esselunga brand
superstore in Pioltello (MI), a medium sized retail structure, which, after its
abandonment as a result of retail de-localisation, has been made into a health unit
through a joint public-private initiative (Cavoto 2014).
The thoughts expressed below follow the logic of the qualitative programming
of retail areas with the goal of possibly building additions to the new regional
programme and, on a cascade process, to local planning and regulatory approaches
by means of the retail components of town plans and local building regulations.
Fig. 1.3 Milan competitive landscape: Deadmall snd Ghostboxes. Source Urb&Com Lab,
Politecnico di Milano, 2015
1. We will start with considerations on the location of new buildings, proposing a

model inspired by the British world’s sequential approach (Findlay and Sparks
2010), which has seen interesting applications in Italy in a number of regional
contexts. Public action involves introducing a regulatory mechanism for the
quantitative and comparative evaluation of location applications and available
areas, which prioritise central or at least urbanised locations, ensuring that
certain requisites such as accessibility on public transport networks, the absence
of soil consumption, limitations on environmental and landscape impact, energy
efficiency, sustainability and material re-use are satisfied.
2. Secondly, it would be useful to consider the economic cycle of large scale retail
areas at the planning and evaluation stage, identifying the various phases in their
lifecycles and planning re-functionalisation, optimisation and re-conversion of
such areas in order to adequately forecast and consider how architectural and
town planning projects, already under way, could be reused in the future. In this
sense, it is important to intervene also by drawing up planning guidelines,
designed to introduce specific requisites and building recommendations with the
intention of minimising the landscape impact of retail areas. which may facil-
itate their later re-use or reconversion/breakdown.
1.3 Demalling: How to Re-activate Big-Boxes and Urban Retail Districts? 11
The United States experience shows that it is possible to import certain measures
designed to favour building re-use when big boxes close. Specifically, large format
retail units in the planning stage should be accompanied by documentation illus-
trating the potential of parcelling out the rentable (or saleable) public space to
multiple shops, thus reducing interior sizing. And this in consideration of the fact
that the bulk of potential tenants, interested in re-using abandoned retail spaces, are
small-scale businesses. In the Bozeman (MT), Olympia (WA) and Reno (NV) area
ordinances apply, requiring appropriate paperwork certifying any transformation,
which buildings would need in order to host multiple retail outlets via internal
walls, utility adaptation and transformation of the façade, by adding extra entrances
to it. In Bozeman, specifically, clauses have been applied to surface areas of around
3700 m2, in Olympia for around 2300 m2 and in Reno for 5500 m2 for buildings of
a surface area of around 4600 m2. Planning for the future transformation and re-use
of buildings can involve extra planning costs but these may limit later modification
costs and favour re-use.
As an alternative to re-use, once again on the basis of US experience, a con-
tractual clause, known as the demolition bond, means that owners must transfer a
sum equivalent to 110% of the building‘s value in the event of closing to local
councils. Demolition can be implemented when the building reaches retail vacancy
levels of 30%. This clause has been adopted in Oakdale (CA), for example, on
buildings of more than 9290 m2 and the bond there covers expenses not only of
demolition in the event of closing, but also maintenance for a total of 12 months.
In Milwaukee (WI), on the other hand, retail businesses occupying surface areas
of more than 4645 m2 require contributions of $0.20/ft2 (0.0929 m2) to the City
Land Conservation Fund, which can be used to demolish the building if necessary.
Contracts set out that owners commit themselves to drawing up projects for
potential re-use or demolition in the event of the area’s bankruptcy.
As far as demolition is concerned, a useful reference is American LEED certi-
fication (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), developed by the U.S.
Green Building Council (USGBC) for environmental building sustainability. This
certification encompasses not only measures to minimise energy consumption, but
also the use of materials and resources, which can facilitate reuse at the end of its
lifecycle, with a minimum of dismantling costs in both financial and environmental
terms. In view of the expenses involved in invasive work to adapt buildings with
the necessary modifications to new functions, this approach could be extended.
Potential physical decay of the building, as well as negative visual and social
impact in the context of reference, following retail dismantling, can be significantly
diminished with contractual clauses between owners and tenants or with local
councils. The maintenance of abandoned buildings is essential if decay is to be
prevented. The American experience provides case studies, such as Newberg (OR),
where 1% of the value of retail businesses in buildings, that are larger than 3700 m2
approximately, is paid into a citizens’ fund used to maintain such properties in the
event of closing or, as an alternative, as incentives for new tenants to encourage
re-use. In order to ensure continuity in retail activities and reduce closings costs,
other measures can be implemented on a contractual level, using certain US models.
Certain ordinances ban rental payments in the event of retail dismantling or, as an
alternative, block retail businesses from retaining tenancies in the event of closing,
without the property being relocated on the market. This favours the immediate
integration of retail businesses into vacant spaces. In the event of the dismantling of
spaces larger than 7000 m2 in Forsyth County (GA), contractual competition
clauses are cancelled, thus allowing the building to be re-used by any business
authorised in zoning regulations. Within 24 months of closing, a demolition or
re-use building project must be presented. In Evaston (NY) a clause was stipulated
with Walmart, which identifies new tenants in the event of closing.
Once again considering the importance of ensuring the maintenance of aban-
doned property, the potential for temporary re-use of buildings in the intermediate
phase between closing and new use identification is a strategic priority. The
American strategic demalling model, involving non-invasive re-use of architectural
structures, often emerges from the logic of maintaining internal spaces active as
much as possible by ensuring the maintenance of a continual flow of users.
Additional functions, some of which were alternative, were used at a number of
malls during the economic crisis, and these ensured the maintenance of such spaces,
the attractions of centres and profits for owners. Case studies include that of
Eastmont Mall (Oakland CA), whose original regional mall went into bankruptcy,
and which is currently targeting rental of its indoor spaces to local organisations,
social activities and small businesses, while awaiting a definitive strategic plan.
Despite the many activities it hosts, there are still a great many vacant spaces.
However, the recurring absence of an overall co-ordination plan for this type of
re-use of the whole or part of its indoor spaces, in terms of functions and time,
frames counteracting decline only weakly by simply putting off the inevitable. This
underlines the need to understand the potential for temporary planned re-use of
buildings, as a forerunner to definitive re-use (or demolition).
Prioritising associations and citizens’ co-operatives has been shown to be a
possible solution to the maintenance and re-use of vacant spaces on the high streets
of many American urban and suburban areas. The Northeast Investment
Ccoperative was the first of its kind in the United States to create a system in 2011,
where residents could invest in buying, renovating and subsequently relaunching
vacant retail buildings with a $1000 stake. In 2012, the Cooperative began con-
cretely investing in the Central Avenue closing, in the north-east of Minneapolis
(MI), re-launching local activities and promoting urban renewal in the surrounding
areas, especially in the Central and Lowry intersection areas. Urban renewal is
accompanied by positive increases in employment, in returns on investments within
the community itself, in re-launching local businesses and start-up initiatives and in
the reinforcement of a sense of community, which is much sought after in the
United States. In some Canadian provinces, support to cooperatives also comes
from governmental institutions, where tax deductions of up to 35% of retail
investments and local business activities are applicable thanks to Community
Economic Development Investment Funds (CEDIF).
1.3.2 The Vital’ Quartier Plan
The socio-economic and regional context

The problem of urban attractiveness and retail desertification has been a research
theme for some time in Paris, a veritable town planning workshop on new ways of
managing new urban problems.
In fact, Ile de France is set out around the Paris metropolis and influenced by the
powerful attractions of its city centre. In a context of this sort, where accessibility is
a factor creating inequality in the territorial distribution of retail businesses, critical
points have emerged also for the medium-large scale retail network which has to
renew itself constantly, in both format and the range it offers to maintain or
regenerate its attractiveness.
To give the retail supply greater coherence in this macro-region, and confront
mono-function and closing issues, identified in both town centres and outlying areas,
a number of monitoring and town planning tools have been used. For example, Paris
town council has an urban research workshop, APUR,19 which publishes a great deal
of research on the key theme of the metropolis every year, and works in partnership
with local councils. In-depth studies into changes in the retail sector enable constant
updates on the trends outlined above (to be obtained), as well as on the consequences
on the urban level, or the whole region, to be forecast. For this reason, an overview of
businesses is drawn up every four years in order to supply an objective research base,
which will enable an overall framework of the retail situation and of the problems,
emerging from the towns to be drawn up (Apur and Cci Paris-Idf 2013).
In the early years of the new millennium Paris city council created new tools or
updated existing ones (Fleury 2010), which may be examples of good practice for
the subject matter of this research. These include:
• 2001–2003: creation of the Quartier Vert programme as a tool to enhance
existing local retail businesses. It is expected to potentially help create goods
loading/unloading areas and renew the urban fabric.
• 2004: activating the experimental Vital’ Quartier programme to incentivise/
re-establish retail in the proximity of urban areas experiencing powerful retail
dismantling and single business phenomena.
• 2006: identifying the main Plan Local d’Urbanisme the main retail axes. This
tool involved the potential for limiting the space along the axes identified that
are allotted to retail and craftsman functions.
Lastly, the action identified in Paris fit into a global regional management
approach. It is the intention of the issuing body that such operations should improve
relationships between the distributional system in the historic centre, as well as
those of outlying areas, and ensure a better balance between the two.
19
Agence Parisienne d’Urbanisme, Paris Town Planning Agency.
The role of SEMAEST within the program

Given evident difficulties in the Parisian retail fabric, in 2004 the city council
decided to assign the firm SEMAEST20 the task of studying the urban retail system
and setting up the Vital’ Quartier programme in certain areas, in partnership with
the Paris city council and the mayors of the various quarters. SEMAEST and the
city council set out a Convention Publique d’Aménagement21 agreement, which
enables public bodies to monitor SEMAEST’s actions and delegate its powers such
as, for example, the right of first refusal in buying space.
SEMAEST is a mixed capital company with powers to receive and manage both
public and private funds with the corresponding obligation to report its actions to
the public body funding it. In this case the Paris city council has set aside 87.5
million Euros in funds, which will be paid back on completion of the project
including in the form of real estate. The total sum has been split into 50.4 million
Euros to the Vital’Quartier 1 programme (2004–15 period) and 37.1 million Euros
to Vital’Quartier 2 (2008–2021 period).
The programme was launched in six urban districts in 2004. Four of these
featured marked specialisation in retail outlets—called single activity—seen as
critical points, as a result of their predominant goods base (wholesalers, ‘red light’
retail, etc.), while two had a significant proportion of disused shops on the ground
floor, 15% of the total (and 27% of spaces).22
After initial tests on these districts (Fig. 1.4), other mayors put forward their own
struggling retail districts. A second phase of the project began in 2008 with five new
districts. Three were experiencing single activity problems, and one retail deserti-
fication averaging 15%. The goal in the last of these districts was very different. It
aimed to safeguard a single type of retail outlet—bookshops—which is one of the
historic features of the area, but which was struggling, due to the powerful
attractions of its central position and the consequent tendency to replace such shops
with other, more profitable urban sectors.23
In 2014 the Vital’Quartier programme was awarded the European CEEP-CSR
prize for the fourth year running on social and environmental responsibility
grounds.
20
Société d’Economie Mixte d’Animation Economique au Service des Territoires.
21
The CPA is now obsolete on a judicial level and has been transformed into a public concession.
22
Retail dismantling in Paris approximated 9.9% in the 2003–2005 period, when the programme
was launched (See Commerce Database BDCOM managed by Agence Parisienne d’Urbanisme
APUR).
23
The large national and international retail chains—with their contractual power in both financial
and taxation terms—often increase the real estate value of retail outlets, when they enter the
marketplace. Rents thus often become unaffordable for local retail outlets of a cultural kind or
those with a local client base.
Fig. 1.4 Development operations managed by Semaest. Source Apur and Semaest (2013)
Goals
The program fixed the following goals:
• re-valuing vacant shops;
• re-developing urban areas;
• increasing urban safety;
• creating new jobs;
• promoting and/or safeguarding a specific type of retail (organic, environmen-
tally friendly, cultural, small scale retailers…);
• creating an ‘urban village’ environment in which neighbourhood relationships
are reinforced;
• confronting retail desertification;
• resisting mono-function aggregation phenomena;
• preserving historic and traditional retail;
• supporting shops as neighbourhood services.
Actors
Local government in France is made up of a multiplicity of actors, each one having
a precise function. This number is doubled in Paris because the metropolitan area is
subdivided into twenty quarters, each of which is managed by local councils, in
addition to Paris city council. Consequently, a multiplicity of public actors are

involved in the Vital’Quartier programme. The main actors are the following:
• APUR, which carried out preliminary research into urban retail;
• Paris city council, which identifies the districts where to implement the pro-
gramme with the participation of local councils;
• the Semaest firm, which has been given the task of activating urban redevel-
opment projects.
SEMAEST has to keep Paris city council informed on its work for the duration
of the project, despite the fact that its funding comes from the banks which sustain
the project. Furthermore a Groupe Technique Local24 regularly makes on site visits
to gather information from shopkeepers, residents and local councils. The goal is to
keep up-to-date on trends in local markets, in real time in both sales and rental
terms, in partnership with Centre des impôts foncières (Real Estate Tax Service).
SEMAEST also keeps contacts with another public body Direction de
l’Urbanisme,25 which is involved in shop sales via the Déclaration d’Intention
d’Aliéner,26 a measure that ensures the company a binding right to buy spaces
granted directly by the Paris city council.
Subsequently, shop owners are contacted for sale agreements mainly via private
deeds or for the purposes of launching a protocol for the next potential owner, or
renting a place. In some districts, SEMAEST offers management of vacant or
un-used spaces to the companies which manage the public building patrimony, on
the same conditions, applied to the Vital’Quartier programme.
When units fall into the SEMAEST system, management companies can be
contacted for renovation. In this way, another body enters the equation—the
Paris-Ile-de-France Chamber of Commerce and Chamber of Commerce—which
announces tenders for the management of the shops, and publicises them with
interested retailers. Future shop owners submit their business projects to
SEMAEST, which selects them on the basis on the information dossier presented
by future tenants.
Local councils are kept constantly up-to-date over the whole process, including
sale of shops and the GTL (Groupe Technique Local) manages an active moni-
toring body.
In order to manage the sale of shops and the completion of the Vital’Quartier
programme, Caisse des Dépots and SEMAEST set up a further company, Foncière
Paris Commerce with the purposes of purchasing these spaces. Paris city council
will also own all the shops in the Quartier Latin district, for example, to act as a
stabilising presence and give continuity to the district’s historic bookshops.
24
GTL: Local Technical Group.
25
DU: Town Planning Management.
26
Commencement notice, mandatory only in urban areas selected by Paris city council.
Fig. 1.5 Time frame and actors involved in the Vital’Quartier programme
Actions
The following implementation actions were necessary (Fig. 1.5):
1. Study
Retail districts were identified after shop monitoring by Paris city council in
agreement with local councils. Once these areas of action had been established,
SEMAEST mandated Local Technical Groups to identify the key points in the retail
axis, gather information on the state of abandonment of vacant units, and monitor
the sale of shops. This local contact is indispensable for the purposes of preventing
shop tenancy turnover, and gathering information on shopkeepers (loading/
unloading goods, parking, opening hours, local associations, etc.), as well as on
consumer habits, highlighting indispensable elements in selecting new shopkeepers
to manage spaces.
2. Buying
Once the district’s potential is known, the Vital’Quartier programme sets out two
potential options for managing vacant spaces:
(a) If the shop is on sale:
• Buying: owners are contacted and if an offer has already been made privately,
SEMAEST can exercise its right of first refusal.
• A protocol of understanding: an agreement offered to future owners, who

commit themselves to maintaining the unit’s current business model, in
exchange for not exercising its right of first refusal.
(b) If the shop is not on sale:
• A retail 3/6/9 rental contract is offered to owners (a classic rental contract on a
three, six or nine year time frame), with a clause that specifies the option to
sub-rent to a third party.
• Leasehold or loan for use: mainly used with public bodies (bodies managing
public housing), which are variable in length but usually 25 years.
Shops managed by the programme are renovated with the goal of enhancing the
local supply context. Work done by companies contacted directly by SEMAEST fit
out retail outlets, in which business is to take place. As far as those activities, which
require the introduction of specific machines or structures (such as butchers’ and
bakers’), are concerned, the programme provides extra funding to encourage such
shops to set up in the area.
Renovation work is done mainly to bring shops into line with the law, as this is
something, which shopkeepers can often not afford. Shops are insulated to respond
to the requirements of Paris Plan Climat27 and supplied with disabled access. Shop
windows are renovated in ‘traditional’ style with natural painted wood. SEMAEST
commissions an architect to design work. Tenders are then set up for companies.
3. Rent
Setting in motion the process of finding a new lessee (e.g. shopkeeper) is done in
the following stages: every month, a list of vacant shops is sent into the Chamber of
Commerce, the city quarter councils and the City council and then published in the
Bulletin Municipal Officiel de la Ville de Paris.28 Residents and shopkeepers are
kept informed with posters affixed to the windows of vacant shops. The Chamber of
Commerce can put forward candidates who send in their applications to
SEMAEST, which has compiled a list of shopkeepers intending to take part in the
programme.
After a first selection in this list, the Comité d’Investissement et d’Attribution,29
linked to the quarter’s public administrators, is drawn up. The main factors taken
into consideration in the selection are: (i) the financial prospects of the hypothetical
business and (ii) the type of goods to be sold, which must correspond to the site’s
potential, as identified by SEMAEST.
The yearly rent must balance the operation. It is fixed on the basis of the shop’s
buying price, the cost of the work done, the street’s retail appeal and the type of
business to be set up. Lessees are exempt from rental payments for the first three
27
Laws on insulation and building CO2 emissions. All renovated shops must respect these
requirements.
28
Official Journal of Paris City Council.
29
CIA: Investment and Attribution Committee.
months and from business start up. Rents can be raised after the first year on the
basis of market trends.
The programme also involves business support services to shopkeepers for the
duration of the Vital’Quartier programme. The services supplied and/or put forward
are as follows:
• List of useful contacts with local bodies (associations, local councils, etc.);
• (Paid) training and conference organisation every two months;
• (Paid) services: audits, business management, retail strategies, etc.;
• Help in the search for funding (special relationships with banks sustaining the
project, inviting shopkeepers to use crowdfunding, and recommending Internet
platforms, etc.);
• Marketing and entertainment activities,30 at the Club’Vital’Quartier.
4. Resale
At the end of the rental period between SEMAEST and shopkeepers, shops are put
up for sale once again. At this point there are four potential options:
• the lessee buys the shop. This is the preferred solution, but one which is often
difficult to sustain financially by shopkeepers;
• shops are sold to Foncière Paris-Commerce31;
• Resale to private owners. This is the last solution, in spite of the retail potential
re-generated by the Vital’Quartier programme, which is often rejected as a result
of the unstable character of the site’s real estate value, which puts businesses at
risk;
• Shops are assigned to Paris City Counciland, and the funds invested are
reimbursed.
A district fighting against retail desertification: the Belleville case
To understand the impact of this action the results obtained in Belleville, the
district, which presented the greatest number of vacant shops in 2003, when the
programme began, are shown below (Apur and Semaest 2013).
The process of retail decline was already advanced when the programme began
and thus regenerating the area’s retail fabric was more challenging than in other
districts, where the programme was more successful (Table 1.2).
Belleville had a closing rate of 22.7% in 2000 and this trend continued, cul-
minating in a figure of 27.4% in 2003. Paris City Council thus decided to integrate
it into the Vital’Quartier 1 programme, which began in 2004. In 2002 the number of
vacant shops dropped by 40%, representing 17% of retail units. Over ten years, the
Vital’Quartier programme succeeded in inverting the previous tendency of an
increase in numbers of vacant shops.
30
Participation funded by SEMAEST.
31
Paris Commerce freehold founded by Caisse des Dépots and SEMAEST in May 2013.
Table 1.2 Retail features of Belleville district (2003–2012)
This outcome was made possible by buying only 19 shops, representing less
than 2% of the district’s shops. As of today, three of them have been resold with a
clause limiting shop use. In addition to the protocols of understanding drawn up
(19), a partnership with SIEMP32 (a company managing public housing buildings
with vacant shops) was activated. SEMAEST intervened in a total of 39 retail
outlets, representing 3.7% of the area’s retail fabric.
In the choice of shops bought, priority is given to corner shops. This location
gives shops greater visibility and heightens the urban impact These corners are
usually between a shopping street and one with a large number of abandoned units,
in order to increase pedestrian traffic from the main street to the secondary one.
Later acquisitions are made in order to extend this pedestrian flow along the street.
The Vital’Quartier shops thus became a reference point along the street, attracting
potential users and clients (Fig. 1.6).
Having faced high retail closing rates for many years, the Belleville district
decided to incorporate tertiary activities, such as offices and art galleries on the
ground floor of the shops bought, into the project. Whilst the ultimate goal is to
establish shops also in these secondary roads, this principle acted as an incentive to
pedestrian flows there. This flow represents potential customers for retail units,
which will find it easier to take the place of the initial tertiary activities in this way.
Retail desmantilng are still widespread today and the shops bought will, for the
most part, be resold to Foncière Paris Commerce, which will enable the process
under way to continue.
32
Société Immobilière d’Economie Mixte de la ville de Paris.
Fig. 1.6 Avenue Gambetta: transformation from 2008 to 2014
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
• a ‘trigger’ effect, an initial impulse aiming to attract other lessees/shopkeepers;
• an analytical tool aiding in a highly advanced understanding of the area which
will enable retail trends to be forecast;
• buying shops ensures that the town council’s management of the area will be
highly effective;
• potential for developing, limiting or safeguarding retail outlet type;
• specific help to shopkeepers, helping them to optimise their chances of success;
• reactivating the neighbourhood network can help to improve the area’s com-
munity life and increase numbers of associations in the quarter;
• increasing governance in the area and thus perceptions of urban safety;
• creating new jobs.
Weaknesses
• highly complex and costly system requiring huge public investment;
• slow progress in areas where abandonment has been under way for many years;
• the complexity of the dialogue between shopkeepers and the public adminis-
tration, due to the multiplicity of public bodies involved in the process;
• SEMAEST has had to invest further in shop buying and operations during the
programme, and therefore it requires rents, which are often higher than market
rates;
• the services and help offered to shopkeepers are generally not free of charge;
• SEMAEST manages shops but cannot intervene in the urban context of refer-
ence (urban fabric, street cleaning management, management of parking areas,
goods loading/unloading).
Potential
• Shop management is open to all, and Paris City Council, or other public bodies,
as owners, can have a direct impact on retail.
• SEMAEST monitors all the shops owned by Paris City Council today. The
creative network can stimulate retail initiative in a great number of quarters, or
otherwise give Paris City Council the chance to create themed retail areas, based
on the new tourism-shopping-culture nexus.
• This system can potentially be used together with or against certain national or
international retail chains, since the City Council will decide who owns them.
• It offers the chance to recreate ‘urban village’ environments;
• It is potentially a tool, which can enhance participatory democracy.
Threats
• It is a tool, which could obstruct free competition.
• It is an extremely large investment fund, and if it should fail, it would be
impossible to recover, except by selling off the land bought at discount rates.
1.3.3 An Innovative Legal Tool: Taxes on Closed Down

Retail Surfaces
The Taxe sur les Friches Commerciales (TFC),33 set out in article 1530 of the
General Tax Code, was modified by law no. 2012-1509 of 29th December 2012
(article 83) and became operational only from June 2014. Every town council can
now decide whether to impose a tax on underused retail surfaces on approval by the
town council. It is a yearly tax calculated on real estate valuations by the General
Tax Department. The tax is 10% in the first year, 15% in the second year and 20%
from the third year onwards. Town councils can decide to increase this tax but not
by more than double (increasing it, then, by 20, 30% and then 40%). Real estate
subject to this tax must be disused for a minimum of two years and have belonged
to the same owner for more than two years. Article 1530 also specifies that the tax
can be imposed on offices or any other spaces that were previously used for retail
business, including shopping mall car parks, storerooms and/or warehouses.34
33
Tax on Disused Commercial Buildings.
34
Taxe sur les Friches Commerciales (TFC), service-public.fr (updated 01/07/2014 by the Legal
and Administration Directorate). They are liable to TFC: “concernés par la taxe foncière sur les
propriétés bâties: immeubles de bureaux ou utilisés pour une activité commerciale, parkings des
centres commerciaux, lieux de dépôt ou de stockage, et qui ne sont plus affectés à une activité
soumise à cotisation foncière des entreprises (CFE) depuis au moins 2 ans au 1er janvier de l'année
d'imposition et sont restés inoccupés pendant cette période (par exemple, un local commercial qui
n'est pas exploité depuis le 1er janvier 2013 devient imposable au 1er janvier 2015).”
Paris city council adopted this tax in November 2014 deciding to double the base
tax rate, taking it to its maximum level, in the hope of launching re-generation
dynamics in disused areas. This measure was much criticised by the real estate
sector, which considered it a further obstacle to the re-launch of disused areas and
likely to penalise buildings, which cannot adapt to other uses and purposes for
architectural and town planning reasons.
Other towns, such as Dax, Perpignan, Argentat, Saint-Amand-Montrond, La
Roche Sur Yon and Calais, adopted the tax in autumn 2014. Differently sized towns
hope to encourage retail regeneration in their town centres through this tax. It is
important to highlight that this law also serves to re-launch the rental market in
abandoned retail buildings.
But if the effects of this law on retail and tertiary sector surfaces in the town
centres have been thoroughly analysed, very little consideration has taken place on
the impact on medium-large scale retail structures. The application of this tax
frequently makes it hard to find business people willing to manage or sub-rent such
disused buildings. The town of Calais, for example, has bought a disused shopping
mall in the town centre for the symbolic sum of one Euro.
Lastly, note that this tax mechanism requires an in-depth knowledge of the area
and its economic and town planning framework, which is often not be found in the
local medium-small scale French context. It is a law, which, in such cases, could
even turn out to be counterproductive on the level of the general objective of
economic re-launch of the urban retail system.
1.4 Reflecting on Cases: Strategies, Actors and Proposals
The stock of strategies listed in previous sections shows an interesting hetero-

geneity in the approaches, policies and actions involved. There is no space here to
focus on specific circumstances of each case, but the comparison among proposed
solutions allows a reflection on the state-of-the-art of current public policies sup-
porting retail and/or counteracting demalling phenomenon, and the crisis in the
distribution system.
In order to move forward in stages in the summarizing and analysis process, we
have decided to provide a set of forms, enabling to list and sub-divide various
international experiences, according to the sphere of action (unitary structure/local
retail). For each experience, one should look at the reasons of dismantling, or at the
factors leading to crisis in the distribution system. For each of these reasons we have
attempted to provide a list of guidelines that affect policies and/or strategies,
developed by public actors. Following the examples of the international practices,
these guidelines affect a set of different situations, in which local or regional gov-
ernment is involved for the governance, the management, or the radical transfor-
mation of retail structures, such as Barcelona’s public markets (Guàrdia et al. 2010).
The in-depth studies carried out currently point out a trend showing how these
challenging situations have been managed at local scale, both for retail polarities
and for urban retail systems.
The variety of scales and approaches collected show the richness of the debate
on this topic, in which several solutions can be exported, creating a specific
knowledge on this field. At the same time, it is important to underline that policies
and solutions have been implemented within a precise legal, economic and social
framework. For this reason, it is important to highlight the specific features of the
context, where various actions took place. The potential innovations are listed in the
following matrix.
The case studies analysed show an interesting heterogeneity in the approaches
used and strategies pursued. At the same time, there is no space here to set out the
specific circumstances of each case but, by contrast, this is an opportunity of
considering the present status quo, and attempting to reflect in a cross disciplinary
way on the current state of public policy supporting retail, as a tool to counteract the
demalling phenomenon and the crisis in the distribution system.
The in-depth studies, currently carried out, show a tendency to delegate man-
agement of challenging situations to local tools both as far as retail polarity is
concerned, and in relation to the traditional outlet. Concerning regional scale
examples, these have not yet been identified and, in actual fact, this aspect
demonstrates the great interest of the action advocated by this work. The change of
scale, linked to the adoption of a new role by the region can serve to heighten the
overall applicability and in-depth effect of the results obtained by means of the
action adopted.
For this reason, it is important to attempt to highlight the specific features of the
context of the various actions, taken in building our matrix, and the potential
innovations in the guidelines, which can be taken as examples in building an
integrated regional approach to this phenomenon in our conclusions.
1.4.1 From Case Studies to Policy Innovation
This summary and comparison of international case studies throws light on the
presence of a highly heterogeneous series of approaches to the issue. A schematic
approach may serve to identify certain useful support tools for the region and local
actors, in their attempts to foster strategies for retail.
There are three possible approaches all fully represented in the research and
dealing mainly with such issues as: (i) preventing desertification; (ii) injecting
dynamism into contexts, characterised by retail crisis symptoms; (iii) acting on
abandoned buildings, thus creating stimuli and incentives for the re-use of these
spaces. These diverse orientations have been structured both in line with buildings
in unitary form, and for local retail.
In the cases introduced, the first approach is the one linked to prevention and
represented by a number of proposals, formulated at PECAB in Barcelona and
1.4 Reflecting on Cases: Strategies, Actors and Proposals 25
PLECdZ in Saragozza, containing cross disciplinary consideration of urban retail

systems, both in relation to suburban big boxes and urban systems. Difficulties in
acting on the possible causes of retail desertification is visible in either cases
(economic crisis and contraction of consumption, socio-economic transformation
and changes in consumption patterns), which leads to the need to prioritise the
building of a quality retail system, capable of presenting itself as a service infras-
tructure for inhabitants and consumers. For this reason, the focus is on
multi-channel supply, the modernisation of the distribution network, and the
building of synergies between retail and other urban functions as the only possible
trajectory.
This is not the place to go into further depth on this type of approach, since it is
too strongly tied to the choices and resources of each individual local council,
which occasionally can choose to launch pilot projects on public space redevel-
opment, as a tool for the promotion of tertiary retail activities, as well as to set aside
funding for individual shopkeepers, subsidies for voluntary shopkeepers associa-
tions, or the creation of dedicated sector policies. It is perhaps more important here
to note the usefulness of the approaches of the cited town councils, to which we can
add the example of Région Brussels Capital, in which retail is the subject of
inter-disciplinary study in political programmes and strategic choices for the city,
and is not dealt with solely by means of sectorial tools and action, neglecting its
social and cultural role. The approaches linked to the injection of dynamism into
contexts showing signs of crisis, and where the abandoned retail units fully
described in Chaps. 2 and 3 are already present, encompass four specific factors
which have been taken into consideration in many of the strategies and actions
presented, each structured to suit contexts (units or excerpts of consolidated urban
fabric) and the specific subject of actions or policies. These factors are:
1. awareness of context;
2. marketing and communication;
3. training and interaction with entrepreneurs;
4. interaction with real estate owners.
1. Awareness of context and work on it
As noted in previous paragraphs, effective monitoring of activities and, above all,
abandoned retail units or those which are currently closing down is an essential
factor in the construction of active policies to counteract such phenomena. It
enables those involved to identify vacant shop owners and understand the reasons
for their inability to find a new market role, just as it occurred in Barométre, as set
out by the Atrium Agency in Brussels. At the same time, it has been demonstrated
that it is fundamentally important to gain an understanding of consumer habits and
carry out market research on economic potential, in order to assess the potential for
retail regeneration. In this sense the Barcelona and Paris case studies, with the
Vital’Quartier project, are important experiences in understanding the opportunities
linked to this type of work. A study of format and goods most in demand would
appear to be useful and will limit investment by targeting shops/investors,

encouraging projects which are potentially in line with market demand, whether
they are linked to a specific urban area (district—like Brussels—or ZUC—like
Saragozza), to entire cities, such as Barcelona, or a specific outlying retail building.
This analysis can be fostered both by public bodies, which can tie this focus to
the building of a company, and private bodies, who can target such enquiries into
building a re-launch or expansion strategy in a specific context. The German case
studies are of note in this respect, since the companies managing the two shopping
malls identified the needs both of their shopkeepers, and consumers, and used this
as the basis for refurbishment of the buildings.
A decisive step in the achievement of such goals is linked to defining the area of
work, in which the analysis should be carried out, and the sphere in which policies
would have an impact. We can infer a certain variety in proposals and approaches
from the case studies in this respect and, for this reason, rather than proposing a
single approach this phase of study must highlight the difficulties that the various
public bodies must show in defining town scale policies for retail and the tendency
to create infra-urban areas (identified as and when as districts, urban retail areas,
shopping neighbourhoods, main streets, etc.) in which to implement reinforcement
strategies (shopkeeper and business funding, specific project creation) and
re-launch strategies (promotion programmes, partnerships, etc.).
In this sense it is interesting to note that, also within these areas, many programmes
tend to identify reference points and elements to focus even more targeted action,
such as vacant corner shops in the Vital’Quartier programme, or large retail surface
areas, squares, intermediate points that create continuity between an area’s main
streets, which are essential to maintaining retail visible and dynamic. Such spaces
require specific attention to maintain ground floor businesses. Action focuses on:
• increasing shops’ visibility, removing or shifting road signs, creating special
parking areas, improving town street lighting, creating pedestrian routes;
• making sites more welcoming in order to improve potential clients’ consumer
experience;
• helping and/or obliging owners/apartment blocks to keep building façades in
good condition and renovate them;
• facilitating grouping together of shops with the aim to increase surface areas and
enable different formats.
At the same time other examples consider medium and large-scale retail as
reference points, too, such as covered markets and shopping malls, implying a need
for consideration of the roles that these can play in relaunching local retail and an
area’s economic fabric. In this sense, the results obtained in Brixton Village, in
which three semi-abandoned shopping malls played a driving force role in
investment and the area’s attractions, make it necessary to consider the weight of
such presences in public policy.
2. Marketing, communication and information in launching new dynamics

Once the scale of action and the sphere of work have been established, it is
important to support such action with effective communication and area marketing
strategies. These can activate new economic dynamics and, in so doing, attract new
investors and potential shopkeepers.
In the most successful cases, public bodies have succeeded in transmitting
re-launch policies in highly visible ways, in order to demonstrate that their role was
not exclusively funding, but also supporting and providing an interface between
stakeholders and those potentially interested. It would seem to be useful to highlight
that, in such contexts, communication has centred on positive factors, showing
dynamism and policy innovation as the driving force for regeneration and change.
In such cases, communication must move on multiple levels, encompassing
more innovative ones (Internet, social networks, etc.), as well as traditional avenues
(bands—such as in Liverpool—workshop organisation—as in the Brixton case—
posters or advertising flyers in Paris and Brussels, etc.).
In the case of local retail event organisation, linking retail and entertainment is
very important as a driving force in economic re-launch, while the creation of an
Internet platform is the best way to create a database of supported projects, while
direct accounts by new shopkeepers is also a way of demonstrating the programme
success to any project carriers and potential important investors.
Monitoring vacant units can also enable searches for potential investors to be
launched, including large-scale retail outlets. The potential for proposing specific
spaces to specific shopkeepers, as the Atrium Agency does, for example, enables a
climate of institutional dialogue to be generated which, if transparent, can lead to
the creation of solid partnerships.
It is also useful to launch a search for potential project carriers by means of
dedicated Internet platforms and/or institutional bodies (Chambers of Commerce,
sector organisations, etc.),as the Vital’Quartierproject does. Compiling a database
of ready to open new shops, managing franchises, or a specific artistic space as well
as locating their professional activities (offices, workshops, etc.) there through use
of vacant spaces is also positive. Setting up tertiary or artistic activities, even
temporarily, in such spaces raises the profile of the area needing re-launching and
brings in people, who may be potential clients for the vacant spaces when new
shops come in.
3. Training and interaction with entrepreneurs as a way of creating opportunities
Informing and creating a retail culture and identity enables existing activities to be
supported both on the town scale and the district/quarter level. For this reason, it is
important to provide training and on-going dialogue with shopkeepers, above all in
local retail, and when this is of the traditional entrepreneurship type. Consequently,
public bodies wanting to consolidate and re-launch retail have to interact with and
raise awareness in three groups: shopkeepers, project carriers and the local
community.
Shopkeepers
Conferences and meetings with personal success stories can raise awareness of new
tools and successful experiences, opening retail units to shopkeepers. It is also an
excellent opportunity to promote networking and construct dialogue and culture in
specific areas and districts. On occasions such as these, interaction is also possible,
involving listening to experiences and taking suggestions on board.
These are opportunities for training, which can support such business people on
important themes that are often of interest to them, such as accounting, marketing,
client interaction, shop fitting and introducing new technologies.
It is important to distribute good practice guidelines, containing useful tips on
shop management, legal support, public services dealing with the retail sector,
which can be contacted to receive explanations of the district’s policies.
Project carriers
Once these have been identified, it is important to understand their motives and
check their commitment to the project. Organising workshops and seminars, which
help them to create business projects is useful to this end. These can help potential
shopkeepers to understand their needs and, in this way, direct their choices to the
most suitable location. At the same time this can be the right place to invite future
shopkeepers to undertake training to strengthen their profiles. When a local body
succeeds in building a process of this type, the motivation and abilities of those
involved can be assessed and, in this way, a new generation of trained and
self-aware shopkeepers can be created as has happened in Belgium where the
Atrium Agency helps candidates to find a shop suitable to their needs, and supports
them in their negotiations with owners. The quality of the business project is thus
the distinguishing feature. In the Vital’Quartier programme the starting point is the
need of the potential store and it is only when a clear view of this has emerged that a
suitable location is sought. Each vacant shop has specific characteristics (archi-
tectural, market, context, emerging demand) and thus projects are not all suited to
the same spaces. The role of the public body must be that of an interface (between
potential shopkeepers and owners; between the various individuals involved) and
directional (training, opportunity creation).
The local community
Often little account is taken of those living in a specific context, but these are the
main players in re-launching an area’s retail sector and for this reason it is crucial to
keep them informed on local retail regeneration strategies and their social
responsibility in this respect. At the same time, it is useful to raise awareness of
consumption habits, which can support local retail.
It is equally important to encourage dialogue between these actors (shopkeepers,
potential shopkeepers and the local community) in order to create a spirit of part-
nership, stimulating bottom up initiatives (associations, events, voluntary work)
and, at the same time, nurture a district and neighbourhood identity.
4. Interaction with real estate owners, a tool for retail desertification research and
relaunch
In the regeneration and against desertification process, a central role is played by
real estate owners, and for this reason it is important that public bodies take account
of these in implementing specific policies. The current economic crisis and diffi-
culties in finding new investors have generated an entirely different attitude—one
which is more open to dialogue and joint working—amongst such actors who are
currently showing a greater interest in dialogue and experimentation than in the
past.
For this reason, public bodies must succeed in encouraging lasting and profitable
interaction between these individuals and potential businessmen, moving away
from past rigidities towards new forms of exchange. For this reason, it may be of
help to work on multiple levels:
• awareness raising and transparency where attempts are made to understand
which vacant sites and units are truly ready to return to the market;
• building dialogue networks and encouraging meetings between owners and
potential investors;
• the legal level creating new tool and contract types, based on flexible time
frames with limitations and scaled rents, such as those put forward by Atrium
Agency or in Brixton Village where vacant sites were turned into potential retail
business incubators.
Appendix: Planned Centres: Medium and Large Scale

Retail Distribution
Avenida M40 shopping mall, Madrid (E)
Reasons for Implementing Type of action Policy

dismantling subject and role innovation
Specific Type Action Direct Indirect
project incentives incentives
Features
Closing/crisis of Private New The owners bought the shopping mall

the main retail ownership to make it into an indoor outlet
attraction integrated with activities linked to
Change in retail leisure
format
Parque Warner Madrid Resort y Parks, Madrid (E)
Closing/crisis Public Ownership Participation Presentation of a

in mainly (Junta de la Approval/ in transformation
retail Comunidad supervision management project for the park
buildings Autonoma (via into an integrated
Polarity de Madrid) subsidiary) tourist centre
attraction Regulatory/ Interaction with the
increases town individual town
Tertiary-retail planning use councils affected to
supply category favour changes in use
differentiation category of the area
around the theme
park
Sophienhof Shopping Mall, Kiel (D)

Features
Obsolescence Private Ownership Applications for Award

of the building Management permits to increase concession (e.g.
Refurbishment company retail surface area increases in retail
project (plus 2000 m2 to surface area) in
Reduction in add to existing the presence of
number of retail 26,500) refurbishment
floor space and projects
enlargement of involving high
remaining quality standards
surfaces (urban design,
Use of ceding public
sustainable spaces)
planning
principles
Appendix: Planned Centres: Medium and Large Scale Retail … 31
EPARECA Lucien Sampaix, Bagnolet (F)
Horizontal Public Ownership New retail Large scale Retail

competition Search for surface area urban activities
Out-of-date investors and format renewal agreed with
format Market creation project town council
Project analysis Renovation Public activities
integrated into a Potential of public building Unitary
large scale work spaces management management
urban management Modifying Building of
renovation Business public local retail
project relaunch transport services
Regeneration of routes
whole format Creation of
a common
market
Shannon Mall (Union Station Mall), Union City, GA, USA

features
Low yearly 1st 1st phase: TAD (Tax Local tax Active participation
family incomes phase drawing up of a Allocation advantages by public body in
with Public future vision of District): Opportunity the 1st phase with
consequent low 2nd the area Regulatory/ zone tax the updating of the
buying power phase together with residential reductions LCI Study
and social Mixed citizens and retail use following on incentives for
degradation Start of public and new from – Drawing up of a
Low property work businesses increases in growth and
values without Start of area Start of public employment transformation
business analysis and work, Community vision shared by
activities in the market surveys infrastructure improvement citizens
area around the 2nd phase and utilities district to – Start of market
closing Private fund public analysis
Opening of new ownership, work – Start of local and
regional retail strategic project social context
attractions drawn up, analysis
within a radius launching and – Map of retail
of 20 min travel responsibility desertification
time for the project
Retail supply phases,
saturation on identification of
the local market subsequent
with a tenancies
concentration
(continued)
(continued)
of large brands Public:
competing with approval,
the shopping monitoring,
mall’s shops updating of
Town planning town planning
redevelopment tools
following on
from
demolition of
the abandoned
building and
new building
Local Retail
PECAB, Barcelona (E)

features
Competition between Public Permit Identification Favouring the

formats level of retail types modernisation of
Introduction of a the urban retail
minimum sale surface apparatus
area for individual retail
permits
Brixton Village (UK)
Loss of format Private Ownership Loan Adoption of a flexible

attractiveness for use tenancy contract (first
Tender open to new of three months loan for
entrepreneurs interested vacant use and opportunity to
in occupying vacant retail stabilise tenants’
spaces in an existing units position)
building
Local Retail 33
SEMAEST Vital’Quartier, Belleville, Paris (F)
Wholesale Mixed Ownership Property Events/ Multi-channel

retail Management acquisition marketing to Geomarketing
activities System Market publicise the acquisition
Quarter marketing analysis and shops strategies
degradation search for Shopkeeper Unitary
Unitary and shopkeepers training and management
agreed Graduated support of shops
management rents/ bought
Long action exemptions
time frame
Powers
conferred on
SEMAEST
by the city
council to
incentivise
purchase
Liverpool One, Liverpool (UK)

features
Urban Public Permit Regulatory/ Permits for new

regeneration/ level town planning retail surfaces as the
redevelopment use category attraction driving
Real estate force for investment
enhancement in an urban
in an regeneration
abandoned process
area Ownership Free land loan Public Loan for use for a
for use in an tender limited time frame
abandoned, to regenerate the
mainly area (and of a share
publicly of the unit tenancy
owned area profits)
Atrium Agency Brussels
Decline in Public Promotion of the Use of local channels

attractiveness in the agency retail potential of (seminars and
metropolitan retail the metropolitan workshops inside vacant
system area and its units, retail tours,
Building of an quarters posters inside spaces)
analytical and and the supra-local level
promotion tool for (fairs, publications, web
vacant retail spaces services, newsletters)
Drawing up of Technical support The agency manages
business plans jointly promotion of a stock of
with potential investors retail units without
and/or future buying them up but
shopkeepers in acting as middleman
accordance with the between investors and
availability of vacant owners
retail units
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Chapter 2
What Future for Vacant Retail Spaces?
Recent Experiences in Italy
Abstract Italy is characterized by a peculiar situation, in which the retail sector

crisis has been driven by the joint action of market saturation, horizontal compe-
tition and format obsolescence. These factors affect both suburban malls and urban
retail systems, and impose that public administrations set up a governance frame-
work in order to support existing activities and provide opportunities for vacant
spaces and big boxes. This chapter describes the process of recognition of retail
weakening, and introduces a set of answers promoted by local authorities. By the
example of some studies and actions developed for the Lombardy and Veneto
Regions, as well as for single municipalities, this section summarizes the integrated
methodology implemented within a number of recent research studies.
2.1 Identifying an Existing and Pervasive Phenomenon:

Dimensions, Geographies and Characters
In Italy, as highlighted by the Revenue Agency’s real estate Monitoring Centre

(Osservatorio del mercato immobiliare dell’Agenzia delle Entrate) in its Report
about service, commercial and production sector properties (May 2017), the stock
of real estate retail units represents the category with the largest number of units
among “non-residential” uses, with approximately 2.5 million units across the
national soil.
The retail units are more numerous in the area of the South (26.6%), followed by
the North-West (24.4%) and the Centre (21.9%), whereas the values of the
North-East (15.9%) and the Islands (11.0%) prove to be lower. When it comes to
regions, the largest relative presence of shops is found in Lombardy (with a 14.4%
share of shop stock) and in Campania (10.9%). As for the other macro areas, Lazio
(9.7% in the Centre), Sicily (8.2% among Islands) and Veneto (7.9% in the
North-East) are worth noticing.
Retail units represent nearly 60% of non-residential stock, followed by ware-
houses with almost 18% and by offices, with slightly less than 15%. If we take
purchases and sales into account, shops hold the largest share in the number of real
estate transactions, albeit with a lower amount to the stock share (equal to 50.8%).

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70872-0_2
38 2 What Future for Vacant Retail Spaces? Recent Experiences in Italy
The Monitoring Centre quotation index evinces increasingly lower values for real
estate properties since 2008 (except for warehouses, which grew until 2010, albeit
slightly): shops are the “non-residential” segment with the most pronounced loss of
value, close to 20% over the last 8 years.
The distribution of the real estate stock of retail units by provincial capitals, as
well as municipalities other than provincial capitals, is concentrated for slightly less
than one-third in provincial capitals, and for more than two-thirds in municipalities
other than provincial capitals. A deflection from this national average is detected in
the Centre, where provincial capitals show an incidence in excess of 40%, and the
South, where the imbalance in favour of minor municipalities proves, by contrast, to
be more pronounced (the data approximates 80%). Lastly, the map of municipal
distribution of the shop stock in 2015 reveals the fact that nearly half of Italian
municipalities have a number of units registered as shops and workshops below 100.
From the viewpoint of volumes of purchases and sales, among the weightiest
regions, Lombardy, which alone represents nearly one-fifth of the national market,
shows a fair market rise amounting to 13.9% in 2016. Lazio, Sicily and Emilia
Romagna, with market shares ranging between 7 and 9%, grew by approximately
20%, compared to 2015. For the retail buildings, an average quotation was cal-
culated, weighted with the relative municipal stock, divided by region and by
territorial area, equal to approximately 1600 €/m2, down 2.4% from the average
2015 quotation. If instead we examine the quotations of shops in “provincial
capitals” only, we notice that the reference average quotation, by surface unit, is
equal at national level to 2205 €/m2, down by 4.1% from the 2015 average
quotation.
The trend in the main cities with a population exceeding 250 thousand inhabi-
tants, in terms of exchanged volumes, shows a general increase compared to 2015,
with the sole exceptions of Naples, Verona and Bologna; the highest rate was
recorded in Catania (+42.1%), Genoa (+25.6%) and Bari (+20.7%). Milan retains
and reinforces the record as the most dynamic city, with a percentage share of stock
purchased and sold exceeding 2% in 2016, opening a gap on Bologna and Turin
that settle around 1.8%. The drop in average quotations is spread throughout the big
cities, with Rome and Turin displaying the most significant dip, nearly 8% in Turin,
and almost 9% in Rome.
Within this framework, in order to understand the dynamics of existing active
retail activities, in spite of the growing attention from the press and the retail
associations—especially within a local context—on the issue of vacant shops and
the process of commercial desertification, there is no official data—at national and/
or regional level—on the real size of the phenomenon and on the evolutionary
trends underway, which would demand the adoption of suitable methodologies and
monitoring tools. Observation of the shutdown of commercial activities found on
the reference territory on the one hand, and use of the dynamics of opening up/
shutting down commercial enterprises, as proxy of the reduction of utilized spaces,
on the other hand, represent the modalities used to assess the phenomenon and its
evolution time-wise, whilst simultaneously initiating a debate on the issue of retail
divestments, and on its contingent or structural nature (Éupolis Lombardia 2015).
2.1 Identifying an Existing and Pervasive Phenomenon … 39
By patching together some empirical evidence and other available cognitive

elements of a more qualitative nature (Pellegrini and Zanderighi 2013; Tamini
2013), it emerges that the phenomenon concerns the whole country, albeit with an
inconsistent spread across the territory. Secondly, the presence of vacant shops is
generally more significant in smaller-size urban centres and in semi-peripheral
zones of big cities, where for some years already a growth in critical situations has
been reported inside shopping malls as well (Cavoto and Limonta 2014).
A first attempt to quantify the importance of vacant shops on a national level
hinges on a 2013 survey conducted by Confesercenti. Based on statistics from the
Anama (National Association of Agents and Brokers), real estate agencies and a
re-elaboration of data from other sources, Confesercenti has estimated the existence
in Italy of approximately 628,000 local units for commercial use, which, as of 2013,
were vacant and unused. It is worth highlighting that a valorisation of this data,
based on the quotation of the rental per square metre,—and an average surface area
of the vacant premises—leads us to quantify a “loss” of around €25 billion (in
terms of rentals the real estate property has failed to net), with a lost tax revenue
exceeding €6 billion. In addition, the survey has brought to light the fact that the
presence of vacant local retail units was significant both in big cities and in
provincial capitals. As evinced by Fig. 2.1, the percentage of shops closed down
varies significantly across the different cities, as well as across the different geo-
graphical areas of the country, moving from the highest percentages (36–37%) of
Bari and Bologna, to 29–30% of Rovigo and Cagliari, down to the lowest values
(18–20%) of Bergamo and Palermo.
This strong difference in the percentages of vacant shops at local level is due not
only to the different impact of economic difficulties experienced by the retail sector,
but also to the variety of competitive and environmental circumstances in which
Fig. 2.1 Percentage of shops closed down in the main Italian cities (2014). (1) The main fashion
streets are excluded Source Confesercenti estimates on statistics from ANAMA real estate agencies
businesses operate. One can only consider, for instance, the possible inadequacy of
shop sizes for the development of an offer of new retail services, as well as of the
presence of a rather high rental level—especially as regards historic town centres—,
compared to what we find in more peripheral areas. In that respect, a recent anal-
ysis, conducted by Confcommercio (2017) has highlighted the fact that a 10%
increase of the ratio between rental in the city centre and in the suburbs entails,
other conditions being equal, an 8% dip in retail activities in the city centre.
Within this context and in order to capture the size of the importance of vacant
shops and retail divestments—whilst waiting for researches and analyses to be
carried out on an institutional level on this issue, and on its economic and social
implications—, we tried to make an estimation, starting from the data provided by
the Revenue Office on the stock of real estate units, registered in the building
registry under categories C/1 and C/3, which includes real estate properties for use
as shops and workshops. As proxy to quantify the size of divested premises, we
took into account the number of units for commercial use left vacant for over one
year, given that, at infra-annual level, there is a physiological retail retail dynamics
of commencement and termination of activities. By using the information, suitably
parameterised, on local units, that are vacant for more than one year, as well as the
result of a series of researches undertaken in recent years—both in provincial
capitals and in smaller-sized localities across the different geographical areas—, and
by calculating such values as a percentage over the Revenue Office data relating to
2016, the estimate of vacant local units for commercial use amounts to 713 thou-
sand units, i.e. 28% of the stock of real estate units, registered in the building
registry.
As shown by Fig. 2.2, the number of vacant shops proves to be especially large
in central and southern areas, where economic difficulties and shrinkage in con-
sumption have had a greater impact on the dynamics of retail enterprises.
Fig. 2.2 Number of unused local units for commercial use divided by geographical area.
Estimated values. Source The Revenue Agency (Agenzia delle Entrate) 2016
2.2 Re-thinking Urban Retail Systems and Sub-urban Dead Malls … 41
2.2 Re-thinking Urban Retail Systems and Sub-urban

Dead Malls: Responsive Strategies for Retail Vacancy
2.2.1 The Reuse of Large Urban Buildings
Milan: former garage Traversi in via Bagutta

Milan tested one of the first Italian cases of functional reuse of a large divested
container of historical interest, located in the central urban context—within an area
of regulation of mobility defined as “limited traffic zone”—, for the settlement of a
large retail structure, through the urban planning procedure of monetization of
envisaged public and private endowments.
The former Traversi garage—a building with a polygonal plan shaped as rein-
forced concrete supporting structure and built between 1936 and 1938, with a
4950 m2 surface distributed over nine floors (one of which underground)—was
designed by Architect Giuseppe De Min and was completed on an irregular lot of a
fan-like planimetric shape between Corso Matteotti and Piazza San Babila.
The rather reduced volume (the town plan imposed a maximum height of 24 m)
and the impossibility of residential use of the lot (due to the irregularity of the lot
and to the absence of free fronts in the surroundings) led to the creation of a
multi-storey car-lifting garage, deemed in the 30s as suitable for placement in the
city centre, within an urban planning context lacking of spaces assigned to the
parking of motor vehicles, and “strategically functional to the service activities
hosted in the neighbouring buildings”. Besides, the 7-floor volume was designed
for the parking of 350 motor vehicles (and a residence for the caretaker), on the
underground floor it hosted a car washing and maintenance service, whereas the
ground floor was allotted to the reception, the offices and some exhibition spaces.
Intensely used over the years, also with the establishment of a restaurant on the
first floor, the garage, opened in 1941, remained active until 2003. The divested
garage owned by Giuseppe Statuto was purchased as a detached property by the
Aedes Group, jointly with Risanamento S.p.a., and among the first possible sce-
narios of functional reuse—with the forecast demolition of the existing structure—,
an urban commercial aggregate, serving a luxury offer was designed, complete with
the underground connection with Piazza del Toro.
In relation to this scenario, between December 2006 and January 2007, the
Commission for the architectural and landscape heritage of Milan launched the pro-
cedure of “declaration of particularly important historical-artistic interest”, inasmuch
as the garage represents an “example of rationalist architecture with a specific garage
function, especially significant given the lack of similar structures in Milan”
(Fig. 2.3). On 25 June 2007, by decree of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and
Activities and Tourism (Regional Directorate for Lombardy’s Cultural and Landscape
Heritage, Direzione Regionale per i Beni Culturali e Paesaggistici della Lombardia),
the asset was declared to be of historical-artistic interest and, accordingly, subjected to
all the protection measures (set out in Legislative Decree No. 42/2004).
Fig. 2.3 Former garage Traversi, via Bagutta, Milan (1938 and 1986). Source http://www.
lombardiabeniculturali.it
During 2008, with the prospect of activating a combination of ideas relating to

the retrieval of the former garage and because of objective spatial and operational
limits found in the structure (for instance, the height of the 7 floors equal to
2.80 m), new design indications were laid down by the Milan Commission, through
the provision of a functional recovery of the existing building, and the installation
of most invasive works (vertical connections, architectural barriers, fire security and
prevention, installations) to be placed in those parts of the complex already affected
by functional adjustments. The design proposal might envisage the vertical cutting
of the attics limited to a few bays and/or the demolition of part of the ceilings in
order to retrieve heights suited to the use of the floors affected by the demolition.
In 2009 Aedes, mandated by Mariner, a company owning the real estate as a
detached property, together with the Municipality of Milan and the Commission
(both of them members of the jury chaired by Alberico Belgiojoso), promoted an
international private design contest, in which some renouned international archi-
tectural firms were involved. On 15th January 2010, the concept project submitted
by Barcelona’s E.M.B.T. firm was proclaimed the winner. In February 2010, an
exhibition of the projects was organized at the Milan’s Urban Center with the aim of
drawing public attention back to the issue of the reuse of urban voids (Guaiti 2013).
The E.M.B.T. project, consistently with the Commission’s guidelines, seeks
original ways to secure the protection of the rationalist building, ensuring a renewed
visibility to the curved front and a marked multi-functionality of the building,
Fig. 2.4 E.M.B.T. project: front view and level-based functional layout. Source http://oldweb.
mirallestagliabue.com
through the conservation of the original materials, and the placement in the facade
of a transparent performance casing, while shifting the residential and receptive
functions to the upper levels, via the innovative formula of the condhotel, integrated
by private services such as spa area, fitness, covered solarium and basement
parking (Negrini 2017).
The proposal has the added value of creating a visual link between the different
original floors and the double central heights (Fig. 2.4), obtained through a skilful
exercise in subtractions, thereby ensuring an increase in level of usability to the new
envisaged functions.
After the contest, between 2010 and 2016, a few sales and purchases of the
former Traversi garage are worth mentioning.1 Such a sequence of transfers of
ownership over the real estate, although it binds the new subjects to comply with
the commitments, signed with the Municipality of Milan in the convention scheme
(with reference to the planning and execution of the public works envisaged by the
implementation plan), it delivers them from any constraint or obligation to lend
continuity and execution to the outcomes of the international design contest.
The urban planning process and the implementation plan concerning the
building was adopted on 23rd December 2014 by decision of the city council, and
subsequently approved on 23rd December 2015. On 3rd February 2015, the
Lombardy Region issued the decree on environmental compatibility, in respect of
the preliminary design of a large retail structure, at the end of the procedure of
verification of whether it could be subjected to environmental impact assessment.
1
In 2010, the Aedes real estate was bought over by Risanamento through an economic transaction
worth around €89 million. In 2011, the building was purchased by Italease, controlled by Gruppo
Banco Popolare, for nearly €75 million, which held it in its own real estate portfolio until 2016.
On 9th November 2015, Mariner s.r.l. was issued by the Municipality of Milan with
the retail authorization to open up a large retail structure.
In December 2016, Banco Popolare Soc. Coop. sold the former Traversi garage
to the private equity fund Hayrish for approximately €70 million through the real
estate fund Hita 1, managed by Bnp Paribas Reim sgr.2
In June 2017, the Municipality of Milan signed the convention for implementing
the execution plan with Bnp Paribas Reim Italy, an asset management company
owning the real estate, and Inail (National Institute for Insurance against Workplace
Accidents), that was still the owner of residual portions of Corso di Porta Nuova
and Via Fatebenesorelle, along which, in the municipal area adjacent to the current
“Play More” sports centre, as agreed upon with Municipality 1, a public service
equipment (covered pool) will be created, as territorial endowment by way of
deduction from the monetization (for an approximate value of €5 million). The
definitive project has already been approved by the municipal administration.
Upon reception of the favourable opinion of the Commission, the implementa-
tion plan will have to be finalized within at least five years, regarding public spaces,
and seven years, regarding private spaces, from the stipulation of the convention. It
envisages the fact that the owners will proceed to restructure the building without
demolition of the former Traversi garage. The design will be managed by Hub
Project and will be aimed at the re-functionalisation for commercial and/or tertiary
and/or private service use (Fig. 2.5). Simultaneously, the plan foresees the imple-
mentation of a systematic set of urban planning works and equipment on the areas
subject to transfer, or already owned by the Municipality of Milan.
In addition, the convention stipulates that the overall surface of the former
garage must be exclusively devoted to the settlement of a large retail structure. At
the moment of issuing the relative building right, the operator shall disburse
€5.5 million by way of additional monetization, to be destined to the enhancement
and redevelopment of the public parking areas linked to the public transport system,
as well as to the improvement of urban mobility in general.
Incentives and town planning rewards
The interest and originality of the present case in the Italian context consists in the
extensive and flexible, non-restrictive interpretation of the regional rules in force, as
it has been provided in the decisional process by the Municipality of Milan on the
issue of localisation of a new large retail structure in the central historic fabric,
aimed at urban regeneration, expansion of local attractiveness, and containment of
the extended expenditure outflows towards the extra-urban Milan territory.
Among the other novel elements, two types of innovation introduced by this case
study are worth considering:
2
Hita 1 is a real estate fund reserved to professional investors, orientated towards the purchase of
value added real estate properties in Italy (real estate properties to be transformed and valorised).
Fig. 2.5 The new design

hypothesis (2017). Source
http://www.comune.milano.it
• the prefiguration of two transformative scenarios for the intervention of func-

tional reuse of the former Traversi garage (medium-sized vs. large-sized retail
surface) made it possible to assess the implementation advantages/disadvantages
in respect to the constraints laid down by the regional legislation in force in
calculating territorial endowments for large retail structures. It threw light on the
urban planning opportunities found in the territorial governance Plan (Piano di
Governo del Territorio), and economic feasibility of the intervention (capital
gain/costs);
• the use of the urban planning premiums found in the Milan territorial gover-
nance Plan have orientated public interest towards the choice of “complete”
monetization of the endowment of areas for public equipment and public use
demanded for the large retail structure, located within a central historic context.
This implies: (a) a deduction share through the direct realisation of a public
service equipment (covered pool); (b) the remaining endowment share not
retrieved by the work, necessary to ensure the overall territorial endowment due
in terms of the regional legislation in force, completely monetized, due to the
impossibility of identifying areas for sale. The simultaneous annulment of the
requested endowment of private parking areas, brought about by the award of
premium to the localisation in a limited traffic zone without time limitations, as
well as the endowments for existing mobility services,3 as envisaged in the

regulatory Plan, has shaped the contextual conditions enabling implementation
of the reuse project.
Regarding this second element, which characterised the urban planning feasi-
bility of the intervention on the former Traversi garage, we should stress that the
regional obligation of endowment of areas for public equipment and public use,
concerning the new large retail structures (equal to 200% of the gross floor surface),
is hardly arguable in this evolutionary phase of the new urban attractors. It intro-
duces alterations both in terms of dynamics and players, inasmuch as it disregards
their localisation in the different settlement fabrics, the existing traffic regulation
measures (pedestrian areas, permanent and temporary limited traffic areas),
pedestrian accessibility, and the local public transport network, existing within the
context of the future settlement. The envisaged regional right of monetization of
half of the standard due (50%), with the simultaneous obligation of finding in loco
public parking areas to the minimum extent of 100% of the gross floor surface, has
factually prevented new central localisations of large urban containers, thereby
incentivizing the market of medium-size retail structures in central fabrics, in
particular, localized in aggregate form (with the gravitational effect of a large retail
structure), yet separate from an authorization viewpoint.
Milan: the reuse of the large containers of Piazza Cordusio
The historic Piazza Cordusio building, designed by Luigi Broggi in the late nine-
teenth century, as completion of the ellipse of the square and built between 1899
and 1901 for the new premises of the Stock Exchange, later transferred to Palazzo
Mezzanotte in Piazza Affari in 1932 and transformed into Post Office palace, was
sold by Poste Italiane via an open tender procedure in 2010 to Cassa di Risparmio
di Torino (Turin’s Savings Bank) for €54 million, along with the simultaneous
conclusion of a temporary four-year contract of lease in favour of the Italian Post
Office that remained active until December 2013. Following the failure by the State
to exercise the right of pre-emption, the real estate property was purchased in
February 2015 by Kryalos sgr4 on behalf of the international Blackstone Group for
a value of €132 million, which also includes another historic tertiary real estate
property (5800 m2) in Via Santa Margherita in Milan, leased to Unicredit.
Asti Architetti designed a project for the former Post Office palace, based on an
intervention of preservation and restoration, and re-functionalisation to commercial
3
The extension of the incentive envisaged for the localization of retail services in favour of the
historic town centre (“nucleus of ancient formation”) and the limited traffic zone called “Cerchia
dei Bastioni” (an area targeted by congestion charge), in consonance with the “general urban traffic
Plan”, has occasioned the annulment of the private parking endowment requested from the new
retail structure, being settled in a limited traffic zone without time limitations. The monetization of
the surface for public parking areas accordingly falls under those pertaining to the failure of selling
areas for services.
4
Asset management company for the alternative closed-end real estate fund called “Pacific 1”
reserved to institutional investors.
Fig. 2.6 The scale model of the project of reuse of the former Post Office. Source http://www.
astiarchitetti.it
and tertiary-managerial use (Fig. 2.6), estimated to amount to about €20 million.
The total surface is of approximately 10,600 m2, of which some 3000 m2 are des-
tined to retail activities, that potentially will be authorized as a medium-size retail
structure. The structure is articulated on the ground floor and the first floor (at double
height) with a space devoted to coffee roasting, to a sales point for different coffee
blends, to tasting and supply (Tamburlin 2017). The retailer Starbucks, in partner-
ship with the licensee company Percassi Food&Beverage, will open up in 2018 the
first Italian structure bearing the “Reserve Roastery and Tasting Rooms” sign,
already present in Seattle, New York and Shanghai, pursuant to a trade agreement
with Rocco Princi for the supply of bread and home-made yeast products.
Within this developmental framework, the context of Piazza Cordusio experi-
ment today is undergoing a strong transformation (Bruzzese and Tamini 2014). The
progressive de-localization of banking services towards the new directional polar-
ities external to the new central historic centre (e.g. Unicredit in Porta Nuova and in
the near future Generali in Citylife) has engendered the emptying of some large
containers (Fig. 2.7) and the subsequent process of economic valorisation of
divested real estate assets—deemed trophy assets by the real estate market such as,
for instance, Palazzo delle Assicurazioni Generali built between 1897 and 1899 on
a design by Luca Beltrami and Luigi Tenenti—that anticipate new uses, flows (not
just tourist ones) and gravitations within the central Milan context that are going to
solicit, for example, an enlargement of the extended pedestrian area already existing
near the square.
Palazzo Broggi (formerly Unicredit and, previously, the headquarter of Credito
Italiano) represents instead one of the most significant real estate properties within
Fig. 2.7 The large divested containers of Piazza Cordusio (2016). Source http://blog.urbanfile.org
the scenario of the Italian urban market. Built between 1901 and 1902 and likewise
designed by Luigi Broggi with Cesare Nava, it is articulated over five above-ground
floors plus two basements, for an overall surface of approximately 35,000 m2 for
commercial use.
Sold in April 2015 to the Chinese fund Fosun for about €345 million, in March
2017 it has been allocated to the “Broggi Fund” managed by Idea Fimit, a new
“alternative closed-end real estate fund reserved to institutional investors”, having as
relative unitholder a European insurance company controlled by Fusun, orientated
towards the development of a functional reuse project, focused on the presence of
retail and tertiary services in synergy with luxury hotel accommodation (Fig. 2.8).
Fig. 2.8 The design for Palazzo Broggi (formerly Unicredit). Source http://www.piuarch.it
Venice: Fondaco dei Tedeschi (formerly Post Office palace)

The Fondaco dei Tedeschi, a compact courtyard building with semicircular arch
loggias, facing Canal Grande, originally built in 1228 as a store and as a place of
reception and exchange of the Republic of Venice for German and North European
merchants, is located near the Rialto bridge in the San Marco district in front of the
historic fish market, and it was used over the centuries as retail and hospitality
place, in a process of ongoing historical stratification. Destroyed twice by fires, it
was rebuilt in its current configuration in 1506 upon a design by Girolamo Tedesco,
before being transformed into a customs bureau and offices during the Napoleonic
period (1797–1809), and being the subject of restoration and radical architectural
interventions during the 1928–1935 phase (removal of turrets in the facade,
introduction of the iron and glass covering above the central courtyard, refurbish-
ment of the structural skeleton) for it to house since 1939 the headquarters of the
post office that remained active until 2010.
Bought by Edizione Property from Treviso (Benetton Group) in 2008 from Poste
Italiane for €53 million, the historic building has been the target of a complex process
of restoration and re-functionalisation to commercial use launched in 2009, that cost
€35 million. The process, started in October 2016, restored an original luxury
department store organized across four levels (Fig. 2.9) with a surface of approxi-
mately 9000 m2, with 2600 m2 of public spaces (“the square effect” of the ground
floor inner courtyard, the event and exhibition “pavilion” on the horizontal glass
covering, the panoramic “covered roof” terrace) and 2400 m2 of services (art and
culture), as part of an overall logic of integrated and complementary use of space.
The OMA Rotterdam architectural firm of Rem Koolhaas, partnered by Ippolito
Pestellini Laparelli, together with Francesco Moncada and Silvia Sandor, flanked
by Jamie Fobert, in charge of the interior design, designed architecture and coor-
dination. The building is managed by the DFS (Duty Free Shop) company from the
LVMH (Louis Vuitton-Moët Hennessy) group, specialized in luxury travel goods.
Fig. 2.9 The localization.

Source http://oma.eu
Fig. 2.10 The design of the inner spaces, the ground floor public square and the horizontal glass
covering. Source http://oma.eu
Koolhass inserts three design elements of partial displacement of the traditional

approaches, including the disciplinary one, to the issue of the conservation of an
asset subjected both to a landscape and a cultural constraint. They are the following:
(a) the escalators5 with the aim of creating a new public route through the building
as experience to feel the space from new viewpoints; (b) the glass covering sus-
pended over the central courtyard, equipped with a new floor, likewise in glass,
used as event pavilion and conceived to be a cultural and meeting place for resi-
dents and for users of the retail offer services; (c) a “covered roof” terrace which, by
standing above the inner layer of the roof, extends throughout its length and rep-
resents one of the main attractive destinations of the design, in synergy with public
use of the inner courtyard, revisited in accordance with its historic role of covered
urban field (Fig. 2.10).
This intentional public vocation, assigned by the design to a part of the retail
structure, represents one of the distinguishing innovative elements of this particular
intervention of functional reuse of a large divested central urban container. This
process has been governed by the Municipality through the definition of the con-
tents of the convention accessory to the building permission by way of derogation,
signed in November 2011 and aimed to ensure public use of the multi-storey
volume, a landscape-bound monumental asset. The owning subject’s commitment
has in fact revolved around a variety of actions: enabling direct and free-of-charge
public use of wide spaces internal to the Fondaco, acknowledging in the
Municipality’s favour the gratuitous use of the event hall for its own institutional
initiatives, use of the “campiello” (the open space on the ground floor that hosts a
restaurant designed by Philippe Starck) for cultural events for at least ten days a
year, and payment to the Municipality itself of an economic contribution in the
5
The escalator represents one of the “architectural elements” (the topic of the XIV international
exhibition of architecture run by a Rem Koolhaas in 2014 at the Venice Biennial Festival titled
“Fundamentals”) that recur in the interventions and in the studies conducted by the author at the
Harvard Graduate School of Design (Koolhaas et al. 2001).
form of public benefit of €6 million for the change of intended use compared to the
original managerial activity.
Within this framework, we should stress that the decision-making process has
been characterised by some heated conflicts on a local scale, simultaneous to a
marked public municipal wish to activate the project consistently with the inves-
tigative activity, the opinions, and the technical prescriptions of the Commission of
Venice and Lagoon and the “technical-scientific Committee” established at the
Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism and headed by Giovanni
Carbonara.
It is interesting to note that the arguments of the two reviews lodged by the
association Italia Nostra Onlus in 2013 and in 2014 against the Municipality of
Venice and the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism was
consolidated and dismissed by judgment of the Regional Administrative Tribunal
(TAR) for Veneto dated December 2014 and, following a further objection, dis-
missed by judgment of the Council of State in June 2015. Emphasis was laid on the
fact that “the redevelopment of the building for retail purposes did not entail any
situations of public interest, a circumstance bound to occasion lack of an essential
prerequisite to apply the institute of permit to build by way of derogation, or rather
the commercial nature of the initiative would be in direct conflict with the public
interest justifying the said derogation”. In the reasons for judgment by the Regional
Administrative Tribunal (TAR), it is stressed that “the notion of public interest is
irrespective of the public or private nature of the asset and has as its reference the
existence of a ‘collective usability’ deemed worthy of protection which, in turn,
might also be compatible with an intended commercial use of the buildings”.
The Council of State further remarked that the building aspects, covered by
derogation, “relate to an already existing building, that has fallen into private
ownership following its divestment from State assets, in currently precarious
maintenance conditions, the recovery of which is sought in compliance with land-
scape and historical-artistic constraints” and that the “sacrifice” of the planning
prescriptions and of the order therein encapsulated “(…) has a comparatively min-
imum weight, compared to the attendant improvements with regard to a series of
concurring public interests likewise entrusted to the care of the local administrative
authority (recovery, accessibility, usability, occupational increase, etc.)”. The rea-
sons for the 2015 judgment lastly underline that “it is not necessary for the public
interest to relate to the public character of the building or its use, as it is enough for it
to coincide with the beneficial effects for the community at large, which potentially
result from the derogation, within a logic of contemplation and contemperament,
suited to the specificities of the case, and falling outside purely financial consider-
ations”, thereby introducing a series of new expressions of the collective value of
attractive large urban containers, often integrated with cultural productions
(Fig. 2.11), that serve the purpose of a critical reflection (Dal Co et al. 2016) about
the potential public effects of these new processes of functional reuse of divestments
within a central historic context as well as in other territorial contexts.
Fig. 2.11 The event hall in covering and the “covered roof” terrace. Source http://oma.eu
2.2.2 Transformation of the Medium- and Large-Size

Extra-Urban Containers
Among the different strategies of public response to the phenomenon of retail

divestment, we should bear in mind two interesting cases, both in terms of method
and achieved results, that have involved the retrieval and functional reuse of two
medium-size retail structures, no longer active, that are located in the municipalities
of Pioltello (Milan) and Castellanza (Varese).
Pioltello (MI): a demalling project orientated towards the settlement of new public
services of general interest
The study of the project for the reuse of the retail structure located in Pioltello
(MI) (37,045 inhabitants) concerns divestment of a medium-size retail structure
(2500 m2) during its phase of maturity, recovery and quick re-functionalisation into
a new centrality of supra-local services.
A medium-size retail structure (grocery store) was closed down and unused due
to a re-localizing strategy of the retail enterprise as a result of the need for exten-
sion, renewal of the physical structures and the layout, and improvement of public
accessibility. Within a few years, through a strategy shared between the public
administration and the private players, the abandoned surface has been transformed
into a territorial healthcare hub, structured around the presence of outpatients’
clinics and services of ASL (Local Healthcare Unit) Milano 2, of Melegnano’s
Azienda Ospedaliera (Hospital Company) and the Auxologic Institute with a spe-
cialist outpatients’ clinic, a sampling point and a diagnostic imaging service.
The building retrieval and the functional reuse of the building—located on the
northern edge of the municipality of Pioltello, in a strategic position facing the
flows of the Cassanese provincial road, in proximity of the D’Annunzio residential
quarter, the town hall and the multiplex UCI Cinemas (formerly Kinepolis)—has
represented an opportunity to increase the endowment of public services of general
interest at a local and supra-municipal level.
From the viewpoint of the architectural layout, the divested retail building had
the typical characteristics of a medium-sized retail structure (Table 2.1). The edifice
Table 2.1 Demalling of the former Esselunga structure in Pioltello (MI): dimensional
characteristics
Medium-sized retail structure (Esselunga) Healthcare hub
Covered surface: 8234 m2 8234 m2
Surface destined to standard: 13,000 m2 14,900 m2
Retail surface: 2500 m2 1750 m2
Parking areas: 12,000 m2 5100 m2
Outside green arrangements: 1000 m2 9800 m2
Date of construction: 1980 2010–2012
Date of commencement of divestment: 2003 Inauguration: December 2012
exhibited a rectangular map (60 70 m), with a prefabricated modular structure in

reinforced concrete, organized over two levels: an above-ground floor approxi-
mately eight metres high, which included the retail space and the storage area; an
underlying floor that hosted the parking spot and some technical and service areas
for the retail area staff. The entrances were located on the western side towards the
parking space where the main access for the users was found, and on the southern
side towards the loading and unloading area.
The design intervention of reuse as healthcare hub (Fig. 2.12), promoted by
Pioltello Salute S.r.l. (a company established ad hoc by Fondazione Istituto
Auxologico Italiano with the two general contractors Polis Engineering e
Cipiemme), which cost approximately €12 million and was completed in
September 2012, has been achieved through interventions of spatial and structural
modularity of the former retail container necessary to modify its building type,
architectural language and functioning from a perspective of sustainability and
technological innovation. The retrieved edifice is the outcome of a process of
opening and enlargement of the building, by altering the habitability of the inner
environments and the spatial image outwards, without any substantial demolition
and reconstruction interventions.
Fig. 2.12 Demalling of the former medium-size structure bearing the Esselunga sign in Pioltello
(MI)
In detail, the key actions of the project are traceable to different scales of
intervention (Antoci and Carena 2013):
1. Reinforcement of the public axis along the area of the former Esselunga
structure, the municipality and the residential quarter through a green connection
that consists in the creation of a new urban park, linked to the already existing
adjoining green areas located east of the former divested building. The area of
the green surface having the function of acoustic barrier is set up as protection of
the new multi-functional healthcare centre from the intense roadway traffic of
the Cassanese road;
2. Creation of a wide technological cover superimposed on the existing volume.
The image of the building is improved, as it turns into a landmark, without
however, modifying the imprint of the volume on the ground. The container is
endowed with the new infrastructure that may be equipped with photovoltaic
panels, in line with energy saving principles;
3. The opening of a new double-height central space, corresponding to the central
structural bays, with the aim of transforming the type of building from closed
and introverted to permeable and open (Fig. 2.13), equipping it with a con-
nective ring space between different functional areas, grouped together in the
same healthcare hub that retains inside its own autonomous distributive system
and dedicated accesses from the outside. In the functional mix, there are also
some retail and supply activities, which make direct use of the view onto the
main front;
4. Removal of the ground around the perimeter of the walls of the floor, previously
underground, freeing and availing for use a large portion of surface previously
occupied and yet unused. The excavation work around the building has gen-
erated the design of the new accesses on the ground floor and on the lower floor,
respectively linked to the external space by an aerial gangway and by reduced
green slopes.
Fig. 2.13 Demalling of the former medium-size structure bearing the Esselunga sign in Pioltello
(MI): Facade and internal courtyard
Chronology of the authorization and execution process

The medium-sized food retail structure (supermarket bearing the Esselunga sing), in
activity since 1980, was divested in 2003, when the owning company transferred
the existing retail authorisation inside the municipal territory (around 2 km away),
extending it into a large structure of approximately 5000 m2, into a new container
located near the “Padana Superiore” (SP 11) provincial road.
The area where the retail structure had been built in 1980 was originally com-
prised within a service area and was part of a low-cost social housing Plan,
implemented through the participation of a plurality of Municipalities grouped in a
consortium. The Municipality of Pioltello granted the leasehold for 90 years to the
retailer Esselunga, aimed at the fixed-term use and construction of a medium-sized
retail container, located near the SP Cassanese road and the local catchment area of
the D’Annunzio residential quarter.
In the late 90s, upon agreement with the municipal administration, Esselunga
decided to transfer its own retail authorisation to a larger-size real estate property
offering a better roadway accessibility. Starting from 1999, the operator gave up the
leasehold right and the retail area fell back into the assets making up the municipal
real estate portfolio, with the commitment by the administration to change the
intended use back to its original and prevalent function of public service. In order to
avoid effects of competition with the new superstore located on the “Padana
Superiore” provincial road, the Municipality and Esselunga agreed on the impos-
sibility of establishing food retail surfaces into the former scope of retail
divestment.
The interventions of transformation of the abandoned edifice and the divested
retail area were activated through the conclusion with Pioltello Salute (grantee of
the area) of the deed signed 27th May 2010, establishing the percentage of
affordable housing and sale of the real estate property subject to the following
obligations:
1. Completion of a real estate unit (668 m2) inside the new healthcare hub to be
sold to the Municipality of Pioltello;
2. Deductible works of redeveloping green and parking areas around the real
estate, remaining in the ownership of the Municipality;
3. The service of maintenance of the real estate portion sold to the Municipality for
10 years from date of finalization and testing of the works.
The healthcare hub named after Don Franco Maggioni was inaugurated on
December 2012.
Actors involved
Municipality of Pioltello
The role of strategic orientation, promotion and management of the initiative was
performed by the Municipality of Pioltello, capable of involving other public
subjects, such as Azienda Ospedaliera of Melegnano and Asl Milano 2, supported
by Fondazione Istituto Auxologico Italiano, through the establishment of the

Pioltello Salute Company, sold the real estate property in 2010. The aim of the
Municipality has been to transform and re-functionalise the divested retail building
owned by the municipality, with a view of implementing a public service of general
interest at a supra-municipal scale through alienation of one of the assets of its own
real estate portfolio.
Esselunga Spa
An additional subject, active in the decision-making process, was the retailer
Esselunga. The surveys and the reflections pertaining to the local offer market and
to the profiles of roadway accessibility have orientated the choice towards lending
preference, over the retrieval and enlargement of the existing structure, to the
establishment of a new big box (superstore) within the same municipal territory.
The reasons for the re-localisation of the medium-sized retail structure must not,
however, be identified exclusively in the strategy of dimensional increase of
medium-size retail structures. The new localisation on the SP “Padana Superiore”
provincial road happens to be more advantageous in terms of potential catchment
area, due also to the agreement concluded with the Municipality of Pioltello, at the
time of the waiver of the leasehold right, which bound the public subject, from a
localisation and urban planning perspective, not to allow the settlement of new food
retail functions in the divested structure, a prescription hardly tenable nowadays
with regard to the current EU and State legislative framework.
Evolutionary scenarios: the public strategy of reconversion of the divested real
estate
The project of reuse of the divested medium-size retail structure in Pioltello proved
to be an important and winning local-scale action, one capable of involving both
private and public actors in sharing a common goal of redevelopment and
re-functionalisation of an unused and abandoned urban planning context. This
process, incentivized by a clear choice of the administration, by a good organisa-
tional capacity of the players, and by a demalling project orientated towards the
settlement of new integrated functions of public interest, shows us the feasibility, in
terms of both economic and environmental and decisional sustainability, of pur-
suing the choice of recovery and transformation of divested retail structures.
Castellanza (VA): the “product-related” reuse of a former divested medium-size
structure
The strategy of public response to the divestment of a medium-size retail structure,
bearing the Esselunga sign and located in the municipality of Castellanza
(VA) (14.397 inhabitants), likewise represents the outcome of the re-localising
decision by the retail enterprise brought about by needs of dimensional expansion,
and greater product-based articulation and differentiation of the retail offer.
The building divested in 2006 was located near a roadway junction, where the
State roads of Sempione and Busto Arsizio-Saronno and Corso Matteotti (entrance
axis to the municipality) converge, which is characterized by the aggregate
Table 2.2 Reuse of the former Esselunga structure in Castellanza (VA): dimensional
characteristics
Format Divestment: medium-size food retail structure
Reuse: medium-size non-food retail
structure + supply store
Gross floor surface 4000 m2
Authorised retail surface 2200 m2
Parking surface 3900 m2
Issue of the permit to build 1969
Divestment 2006
Opening of new non-food retail surface and 2014
supply store
Fig. 2.14 Reuse of the former Esselunga medium-size structure in Castellanza (VA)
presence, inside the municipality of Castellanza, of different types of retail activities

(clothing activities, sales of furniture and DIY, and several supply stores) and by a
large food retail structure bearing Il Gigante sign, of 6700 m2 The structure was
surrounded by the clear-cut surface dedicated to the parking on a single level
(Table 2.2) and the open space was characterized by the absence of green spaces.
The new non-food retail space (Fig. 2.14), opened in 2014, was subsequently
allocated to an internal restructuring design of the divested structure, thereby
solving static and decay issues that used to characterize it, including the collapse of
the covering, while leaving the internal distribution unchanged.
Chronology of the authorisation and implementation process
The medium-size food retail structure (supermarket bearing the Esselunga sign),
made operational through the grant of the building permission in 1969, in October
2001 started to show layout and obsolescence problems. The access ways and the
parking areas were deemed insufficient and non-functional: the logistics and
goods-handling areas were too limited for the operator’s needs, and in general the
structure proved inadequate to meet the consumers’ demand, as they switched to
other new retail structures, more recent and attractive, that opened up within the
gravitational area.
In 2004, the convention between the Municipality of Castellanza and the

Esselunga Company was concluded for the purchase of the real estate by the
municipal administration, starting from the moment when its retail activity termi-
nated. In December 2006, a new large-size Esselunga retail structure was inaugu-
rated within the same municipal territory, while the former retail structure was
closed down.
July 2017 witnessed the promotion of a competition inviting ideas on the
redevelopment of the area, the winners of which were proclaimed on 30th
November 2007. In December 2009, the decision was taken to demolish the former
Esselunga building. The area was included in the design of a sports hub called
Ecoparco that concerned the entire valley floor of the Olona River, inclusive of the
sports hall and the market square. The intervention proved very costly: approxi-
mately €9 million with a further €6 million necessary for the market square and
sports hall. In the intention of the municipal administration, the realization will have
to be borne by the private subject that is going to be awarded the relevant public
tender and is going to manage the overall area for such a period, as to enable the
depreciation of the investment. In January 2011, the call for bids for the Ecoparco
was unattended, since the economic operators interested in the investment asked for
the project to be supplemented with the creation of an outdoor swimming pool, in
order to increase the offer to the summer months as well. Whilst waiting for a new
invitation to tender, in May 2011 the administrative elections confirmed the out-
going mayor.
In December 2011, by resolution of the city council, the decision was taken to
confer the right of gratuitous thirty-year usufruct of the former ex Esselunga real
estate on the public company “Castellanza Patrimonio s.r.l.”, subject to the obli-
gation to produce income, retaining the use for commercial purposes. In March
2012, the association “noi amiamo Castellanza” proposed to the municipal
administration the realisation of a farmer market in the former Esselunga area.
June 2013 saw the definition by Castellanza Patrimonio of the tender notice for
the allocation on lease of the former Esselunga property, with the starting price set
at an annual €200,000 rental. During the lease, the real estate property will have to
maintain the pre-existing use for commercial purposes. In this case, too, the tender
excluded the proposals of retail activities in the retail food product sector (besides
the prohibition against: wholesale food retail, hotels, discos, gyms, clinics and labs
for medical analyses, horse racing agencies, gaming halls and houses, masseurs,
beauty salons and equipment for aesthetic/therapeutic gyms), the maximum size of
which, in the event of settlement of retail stores, was bound not to exceed 2500 m2
of retail surface.
In August 2013, the property was allocated on lease through the public auction
procedure, pursuant to the method of secret bid over the basic rental, to the “Bella
Store Srl” company headed by Chinese clothing entrepreneurs. In June 2014, the
new medium-size non-food retail structure bearing the New Angel sign was
inaugurated. As completion of the surface covered by the call for bids, in July 2014
a supply store (restaurant bearing the Wok Like sign), adjoining the clothing retail
activities, was opened.
Actors involved
Municipality of Castellanza
Territorial body that purchased the former Esselunga department in a strategic
position, in the urban centre, close to the Olona River, with the original public
objective of functional redesign of the riverfront area, recovery of its
environmental-landscape value and settlement of public functions. Given that this
project was not realised, due to the economic costs and the lack of willingness on
the part of private investitors, the Municipality decided to confer the former
Esselunga edifice on the public company Castellanza Patrimonio Srl (sole share-
holder: the Municipality) along with the establishment of a thirty-year usufruct that
enabled, through the invitation to tender for the allocation on lease of the property,
the reuse and economic valorisation of the public building formerly used for
commercial purposes.
Esselunga Spa
Company owning the medium-size retail structure of Castellanza divested on
account of relocalisation with extension into a new large-format container of
superstore type (approximately 4400 m2) within the same municipal territory. The
reasons for the divestment are essentially traceable back to:
1. The prohibition against increasing the retail surface of the existing medium-size
structure laid down by the local governance tools for the territory;
2. Localization no longer adequate in gravitational terms, being in the same pri-
mary catchment area guarded by other retail signs of food offer, dimensionally
larger and in direct competition (e.g. Il Gigante).
Noi amiamo Castellanza
Association made up of citizens who have carried out the request to use the
Esselunga area for different public activities. It expressed a critical position towards
the municipal administration, inasmuch as the divested structure might have been
reused in a more original and creative manner through projects of collective
interest.
2.3 Recent Experiences: From Practices to an Integrated

Methodology
2.3.1 Public Policies Supporting Urban Retail System:

Urban Retail District
From a viewpoint of enhancing the potential for corporate growth, productivity and
innovation, with special regard to micro, small and medium-sized companies, and
facilitating the competitiveness of the national productive system within the
European and international context, at a national level, the model of retail districts
(Distretti del Commercio)—sort of Italian version of BID—has been pushed and
formally defined as “retail districts are productive areas and initiatives, in which
citizens, enterprises and social groups, freely united, carry out retail as a factor of
enhancement of all the resources that the area disposes of.”
On the occasion of the formal recognition, the Veneto Region will have the
chance to collect from the 51 Districts, identified by the 2014 call, a series of
homogeneous data for possible comparisons regarding the actions undertaken and
the results achieved in an attempt to restore any clusterizations, and critical
assessments on the evolution, currently underway, of the retail district phenomenon,
with a view to steering the future regional action.
From 2008 to 2013, the Veneto Region has financed the “strategic regional
Project to revitalize historical and urban centres and redevelop retail activities
aimed at ‘experimenting innovative organizational models and coordinating public
and private initiatives’ and orientated “towards an integrated and unified manage-
ment of the processes for developing the urban economy, with specific regard to
retail activities and the overall offer of services in the historical and urban centres.”
Within the legislation currently in force on the regulation of retail retail activities
at fixed sites, retail districts are defined as “areas of municipal or inter-municipal
relevance, where citizens and enterprises, freely united, carry out retail as a factor of
innovation, integration and enhancement of all the resources offered in the area, in
view of increasing its attractiveness, regenerating the urban fabric and supporting
the competitiveness of its commercial polarities.” [Regional law No. 50 of 2012 art.
3(1)(n)].
Article 8 of the same regional law stipulates that the Municipalities, “separately
or jointly, through the initiative of organisations of retail enterprises and con-
sumers”, submit the proposal of identification of retail districts to the regional
Council, which approves them pursuant to its own resolution. In addition, “in order
to enhance the peculiar characteristics of such contexts, the Region promotes the
same policies of development and innovation of retail activities, conducting
experiments with sales hours”.
Lastly, retail districts have enjoyed further recognition in regional Regulation no.
1 of 2013 which, in the compensatory measures laid down for the new Large retail
outlets (“social responsibility component”), among the various rewards the eco-
nomic operator might activate, introduces a potential qualitative action on urban
and central contexts. Alongside a commitment to its implementation, this action
foresees the presentation of a project promoting retail activities in historical and
urban centres that contemplates a partnership with the municipal administration, as
well as other economic operators (articles 7 and 8 of the regional law on model of
integrated programs and retail districts).
In October 2014, the approval on a trial basis of the call for a funding of
pilot-projects, with an overall public contribution of 7776.925 €, aimed at identi-
fying the retail districts, has represented the first concrete implementation of the
regional regulatory provision orientating public and private subjects towards new
2.3 Recent Experiences: From Practices to an Integrated Methodology 61
forms of economic and social aggregation for the development of retail services and
urban economy.
Based on the ascertained findings of the projects received, and through a sub-
sequent measure, the Council approved the identification of 26 retail districts, out of
the 53 proposals submitted, 2 of which were not admitted to the evaluation. The
choice among the total or partial admitted contributions complied with the quali-
tative criteria and the properties set out in the call (Attachment A). Sixteen
pilot-projects were admitted to a co-funding that covers 100% of the request,
whereas the remaining 10 districts received a share amounting to 70% of the
request.
The comparative picture that emerged among the pilot-projects on retail districts
(Table 2.3) highlighted the need of further reflection on the following issues:
• An extended participation by Municipalities (78), separately and jointly: of the
51 proposals admitted to the evaluation, 38 concerned s, whereas 13 aimed at
the establishment of territorial districts (at an inter-municipal level). More
specifically, out of 26 applications admitted to funding, 17 consisted in urban
retail districts and 9 in territorial Districts.
• A rich and sophisticated system of approaches to the issue of urban and terri-
torial district intensity, linked to the problem areas, as well as to the poten-
tialities of the local realities, where the pilot-projects are located. A plurality and
heterogeneity of actions, where initial attempts to integrate town planning
regulation and policies, orientated towards urban attractiveness and consolida-
tion of local retail, emerged.
• An important monitoring work carried out more as a strategy of control and
implementation of the district itself than as a tool for reading and interpreting the
concrete effects and impacts of district policies on the local socio-economic,
commercial and regulatory dynamics.
Towards a regional recognition of retail districts
Within the process of formal recognition of the set of retail districts identified by the
2014 call, and in order to assess the different pilot-projects, the Veneto Region drew
up a stock of qualitative criteria and performance indicators. They have been
prefigured in order to be applied and measured both to co-funded districts and to
those identified by the Veneto Region, while waiting for the subsequent enhance-
ment actions.
The aim of performance indicators is to understand whether the actions under-
taken, as part of a retail district partnership agreement or as part of a local, but not
necessarily district-based governance, have generated positive effects inside the
local retail concentration. It is a way of testing both the effectiveness and the extent
of the returns, which may be applied to single actions, like for instance monitoring
the number of participants in a planned event, or the responsiveness of parking
areas during specific events or moments of the day. This kind of testing may also be
applied to more complex strategies, in order to check whether their application has
improved the general state of the retail network in the medium term (e.g. economic
Table 2.3 Retail districts identified by the Veneto Region: specific objectives
Ranking Emerging theme
1 District as an element to increase the attractive capacity of the Parco delle Dolomiti
territory
2 District as an engine of development of the theme of reception of new investors,
tourists, flows, etc.
3 Need to find again a Centre as a reference point for retail, social life and culture
4 Activation of the public stand as a driver for attractiveness and catalyst for
visibility
5 Creation of a district quality card as certificate of high offer and service standard
6 The inter-provincial dimension of territorial districts: an exploration
7 Golf courses, parks and quality food and wine offer as attractive elements for the
District
8 New fair space as springboard for new investments
9 Integration and enhancement of the various retail formats operating across the
territory as opportunities
10 Promotion of food and wine excellences
11 Relationship with the Italian Chef Federation (FOC) as opportunities
12 Construction of a fabric linking central concentration and external polarities to the
centre
13 Retail district inside a tourist Municipality
14 Continuation of the path traced by the previous calls
15 Attractive tourist-religious sites (Basilica Madonna dei Miracoli)
16 Preserving and reinforcing the existing system
17 Deseasonalization of a district linked to winter tourism
18 Promotion of agro-food production chain and industrial District of art furniture
19 Territorial district encompassing a multi-channel offer—integration of fixed-site
retail + markets
20 Enhancement of the retail offer and integration with the tourist one
21 Coordination of a “multi-centre” district, divided into axes and central area
22 Retail district based on a business network
23 Consolidation of the existing offer system and inclusion of strategic contexts
24 District as an element in the construction of territorial cohesiveness
25 Role of local retailers associations as district spokesman/partners
26 Tourist municipality attracting a chiefly foreign presence
trend in the turnover of commercial service activity within the area or the
agglomeration), the demand for ground floor spaces for the establishment of new
activities (increase/decrease of the real estate values of ground floors and disused/
vacant spaces), and the level of system efficiency, in providing a service to residents
and visitors (index of accessibility of some services).
It is a matter of identifying this punctual ex-post analysis on a multi-criteria
approach, specifically aiming to assess the attractiveness, the quality of the offer or
even the overall sustainability of the district. An interesting aspect is that this kind
of analyses may relate not only to the performances of the retail sector in a narrow
sense, as it may also in many instances extend as far as including aspects linked to
the perception of the places by their inhabitants and regular users (sense of security,
perception of decay, …). This element serves to emphasize once more that the state
of the retail offer and the services has an impact on the quality of the experience of
regular city users, and that, at the same time, we may alter the image of a context or
a strand of urban fabric, as a consequence of a series of targeted interventions.
The study dedicated to the impacts of the district serves, for example, to stress
the externalities of the interventions carried out and implemented in the medium
term. That is why indicators pay heed to the perception of accessibility and wel-
coming quality of the district from the users’ viewpoint, as well as their knowledge
of the offer by the district and its initiatives. In addition to these aspects, it is
relevant to measure the feeling of satisfaction of both users (consumers included)
and operators making up the partnership agreement.
An element of innovation emerging from a comparative analysis of the
pilot-projects relates to the need to create a set of indicators capable of checking
both the trend pertaining to single actions and the results in absolute terms of the
district. Together with the attempts provided, for instance, by the districts with
Belluno and Portogruaro as leading Municipalities, it is worth mentioning the
interest in the creation of a monitoring platform of the district submitted by the
neighbouring Municipalities of Lendinara, Motta di Livenza, Verona, Malcesine
and Villafranca di Verona. In fact, the use of a monitoring platform resorting to
performance indicators has a strategic and innovative value, associated with dif-
ferent aspects included in the regional call, since the creation of a series of indi-
cators suitable for comparison of more than one district allows to assess the
effectiveness not only of the individual actions, but also the pilot-project itself in the
medium- to long-term. This should enable us to contextualize and compare a district
implementing a specific project with other retail districts at a Veneto regional scale
(pursuant to a criterion of verification and benchmark tests), which, in view of a
future creation of a network of subjects promoting local realities, might be part of
an inter-regional system.
Qualitative criteria and performance indicators
Given this scenario, within a methodological approach of a multi-criteria character,
in order to proceed with a formal recognition and a new policy of competitive,
strategic and qualitative revamping of the districts identified by the Veneto Region,6
6
To give an example, the Lombardy Region in 2012 adopted, as reference for the definition of
quality standards in managing the Districts, the Quality Mark (QM) certification path elaborated by
the Tocema Europe association (Town Center Management). To obtain recognition, candidates
filled out a questionnaire that identified a series of basic standards the district had to prove to
possess (self-certifying conformity with a required parameter and producing adequate supporting
documents) divided into 3 categories: (1) partnership and operators (2) vision and strategy
(3) actions implemented, assessment and proactivity.
value added elements are represented by the presence of the following indicators
and contextual conditions:
1. the activation of studies and researches of a technical-scientific nature aimed at
identifying critical areas and opportunities and identifying operational and
strategic tendencies concerning the local economic and retail system, accessi-
bility to pedestrians and cyclists, sustainable mobility, the dynamics of the real
estate market, the legacy of vacant spaces to be redeveloped, the ties with the
tourist and cultural vocations of the area, and communication at municipal and
supra-local level (territorial brands);
2. the promotion of tenders and competitions for ideas on the topic of urban
redevelopment and regeneration, local economic and retail enhancement, urban
decor and public space, qualification of building heritage destined to economic
activities and services, energy and environmental sustainability;
3. the definition of active policies on the reuse of vacant ground floor spaces and
large disused containers found in the urban and central municipal networks as a
result of new methods of town planning regulation, selective use of economic
compensations pertaining to the localization of medium and large retail outlets
in the area, promotion of innovative local partnerships with real estate proper-
ties, and forms of tax concessions;
4. the participation in strategic and/or programmatic inter-municipal round tables
(including in the form of observers, voluntary associations of Municipalities and
activities of extra-territorial sharing and joint participation) aimed at activating
policies of retail and economic development on a vast scale, communication and
territorial marketing actions, integrated projects of enhancement of local and
supra-local attractiveness, synergies with the agro-food production chains and
services associated with tourist reception;
5. the presence of a stable governance and a local community, extended to groups
and business networks, that has built a process of coordination between the
different urban economic activities, with a control room escorted by professional
profiles well-versed in the issue of unified management of the city centre and the
historical fabric (e.g. profile of the district manager), capable of lending visi-
bility and recognisability to the territory (e.g. through active participation in
decision-making activities at municipal, inter-municipal and regional level,
through the attendance of fairs and national or international theme-based events
showcasing the retail district as an element for the promotion of urban and
territorial attractiveness);
6. the planning of innovative monitoring actions targeting the local urban system
which, beside the traditional studies on pedestrian, cycling, road access and
local public transport flows, on real estate values, on the quantification of
business closures, on the numerical availability of parking lots, and on the
perception of security, offers a non-sectoral and not purely quantitative
dimension of the multiple characteristics and specificities of the examined
context and the effects and impacts of the various district policies.
2.3.2 (Oriented) Policies for Urban Retail Systems
The active policies reproduced in this section of the book collect a set of approaches
to the phenomenon of retail divestment at a central urban scale that have anticipated
over time, in partial forms and with an experimental character, methodologies of
fact-finding investigation, intervention actions, good contractual practices between
public and private subjects and design guidelines susceptible of being reproduced
(not always) in other territorial contexts as well.
Fare Centro, Forlì
The Emilia-Romagna Region, within the scope of policies of redevelopment of the
cultural and environmental heritage, has launched several experimental projects
aimed at defining an operational tool in support of Municipalities in order to plan
the valorisation of historic town centres. Through the operational program of the
European Regional Development Fund (ERDF 2007–2013), the Region has funded
38 projects, for an overall contribution of €40.7 million.
In particular, the Fare Centro (Making Centre) project coordinated by the
Municipality of Forlì (117,946 inhabitants, Istat, January 2017) has represented a
good practice of interaction between different subjects, from the municipal
administration to the individual property owners, from the professional associations
(retail, crafts and services) to the local operators, who in 2010 gave birth to a mixed
company (“Forlì nel cuore”) aimed at an experimental project of integrated inter-
vention on the natural retail centre existing in the historic fabric of the city.
As regards the issue of revival of unused ground floor spaces in the central
fabric, this mixed-type entity (consortium-type cooperative) has worked on different
types of projects: from the creation of synergies to increase the attractiveness of the
historic and urban centre for investors and franchising operators, to the permanent
or temporary occupation of vacant shops (Inti et al. 2014) in view to create an
ongoing retail flow; from the reduction of the perception of decay and abandonment
of the city centre, to the creation of cultural events for the city.
From an operational viewpoint, the intervention revolved around some
preparatory phases for the action design:
• November 2011—creation of a database of vacant spaces found in the historic
town centre divided by name, sign, state of utilization, target of the offer,
maintenance conditions, photographic shot and number of views onto the road;
• December 2011—building registry analysis of all the data collected, and iden-
tification by name of the property owners;
• January 2012—organisation of meetings and public debates with the different
owners, aimed at illustrating the objectives and the work methodologies, and at
gathering the participation of private subjects willing to avail Forlì nel cuore in
the vacant units, in order to experiment the first initiatives of attraction in the
inner spaces, of temporary reuse and of covering empty shop windows with
signs and graphics consistent with the historic fabric.
Fig. 2.15 “Spazio agli spazi” action, September 2012. Source http://www.forlinelcuore.it/
This action translated in September 2012 into the Spazio agli spazi (Space to the
spaces) project with the promotion of an open call for tenders to collect the
applications—organized by “Forlì nel cuore” with the contribution of Municipality,
Province, Chamber of Commerce and the local credit institutions—for the inclusion
in the vacant spaces of exhibitions and shows, cultural animation activities,
workshops and artistic stage-events for non-profitable reasons (Fig. 2.15), where
the vacant units have been granted to the identified associations on a rental-free
basis (the staging, cleaning and utility expenses resting on them).
During the selection phase, stakeholders were chosen among those players that
ensured a more continuous presence (from two to three months), paying regard to a
minimum period of one month. It is worth noting that in the first 2012 edition of the
project, Forlì nel cuore received 47 requests for temporary use, 40 of them from
cultural, artistic and volunteer associations and 7 from private subjects (not
envisaged by the tender notice). 11 requests related to creative lab activities, 18 to
theme-based workshops and 12 to exhibitions, with activities addressed to a plu-
rality of contexts and age groups. Selection of the initiatives and the program for the
use of free spaces, through a rotation mechanism, has been coordinated by the
departments of Productive Activities, Culture, Youth Policies and Environment of
the Municipality of Forlì in collaboration with Forlì nel cuore.
At the same time, since November 2011 the municipal administration has been
structuring ongoing forms of its Fare centro action (2012–2019) through the
establishment of a fund for promoting leases of properties for non-residential
purposes in the historic town centre, with a first annual provision of €100,000 (for
three years), deriving from the economic compensation provided by two large-size
retail structures for support to urban retail. The aim of this initiative was to:
• Facilitate the reuse of containers for non-residential purposes, with the aim to
promote the quality of views onto public spaces and combating the perception of
decay, associated with the presence of abandoned shop windows;
• Implement the settlement offer for non-residential purposes in the historic town
centre, thereby facilitating the launch of new activities or the repositioning of
existing stores in contexts more extensively traversed by flows, thus con-
tributing to increase their quality, viability and security;
• Strengthen the traditional distribution network (product- and type-related char-
acteristics, size) that, together with the development of medium-size structures
(as protection of proximity), tend to improve the capacity of attraction of the
residential catchment area and the share of fluctuating population;
• Contribute to enhance the vocation of the natural central retail context, including
tourist aspects, through the activation of new enterprises. The involvement of
economic operators and franchising chains is envisaged by flanking the fran-
chisor in the strategic identification of the vacant space where to lodge its own
franchisee, in terms of internal layout and complementarity with the functional
mix found in the area.
The central objective of the Fare centro project was to support the new retail
enterprises in the urban fabric through access to funding until resources were
exhausted, and by setting up the following innovative tools: an advantageous
standard contract of lease; a database of the vacant spaces to orientate the locali-
sation choice; direct contacts with the owners and technical support during the
start-up phase (Fig. 2.16).
As a distinguishing element of this process, that saw the application of 67
entrepreneurial entities, a new form of lease contract for historic town centre is
worth mentioning, whose aim it is to make the rental costs more sustainable for the
new economic activities. This was the result of cooperation between the department
for economic development and productive activities, the associations of real estate
owners and an advisory subject for the development of a commercial network of the
historic town centre. The contract, with a six years’ duration, envisages a variable
rental set by consensus between the owner and the lessee, as a percentage of the
amount of the annual business volume achieved in any single calendar year by the
economic operator. Regardless of the amount of its own business volume, the latter
warrants, payment of a minimum guaranteed annual rent.
Fig. 2.16 Matrix of design goals. Source Indis Unioncamere (2013)

From a viewpoint of interplay of actions and with the aim of intervening on

phenomena of decentralization of the residence towards external contexts, the
Municipality of Forlì has additionally accompanied these ongoing measures of
economic incentive to the economic activities of the historic town centre, and this
according to the forecast since 2011 of a 9 per thousand increase in the rate for
vacant residential units and for the related fixtures, that is compulsory if no contract
of lease has been registered for at least two years, regardless of the use of utilities.
Brescia Open
Brescia Open is a project of integrated reuse of unused ground floor spaces within
the scope of the historic town centre of the municipality of Brescia (196,970
inhabitants, Istat, January 2017), activated in 2014 and coordinated by Consorzio
Brescia Centro,7 with the participation of Confesercenti, the residents of the historic
town centre and the municipal administration, and with the contribution of the
Lombardy Region and the Chamber of Commerce.
The project was structured around different levels of intervention:
• Reuse of a vacant retail store in a capacity as temporary showcase (one month)
for short-term artistic exhibitions, with the lighting covered by the Consortium
and no lease rental;
• Temporary reuse of a vacant space as showcase for retail purposes: in this
instance, the lighting is covered by the tenant and the lease rental defined
according to product type, location and surface;
• Activation of a temporary store,8 with expenses resting on the lessee and a rental
to be agreed upon;
• The real estate unit in question can turn into a temporary showcase orientated
towards its reuse on lease or as an element of attraction for the commercial axis:
in this instance the lighting is supplied by the Consortium and the contract is one
of an interest-free loan.
Seven months after the launch of the project, sixteen former retail spaces have
taken part in the initiatives of Brescia Open with a score of ten units leased through
standard contracts of lease (six years) and a surface temporarily set aside as exhi-
bition space (Fig. 2.17).
From the last report by the consortium dated May 2015, it emerges that the
number of vacant spaces managed by the project were twenty-eight, distributed
homogeneously within the area of intervention (eleven in Corso Pale-stro, six in
Via Dante and eleven in Via Martiri della Libertà). Twenty-two units have been
7
Consorzio Brescia Centro was founded in 2006 as a non-profit organisation addressed and
devoted to the problems concerning the coordination, mutual enhancement and collaboration
between retail activities in the historic town centre of Brescia, within the perimeter of the Veneto
walls.
8
Format rivisited and accompanied in 2017 by the Municipality of Bolzano by the project headed
“Store again” from the shop sharing capable of building synergies and complementarity between
different subjects within a single shared retail space.
Fig. 2.17 Activation of the pilot project and reuse of an empty space, Corso Palestro. Source
http://www.comune.brescia.it/
rented through the consortium, while thirty artists painters, sculptors and collectors
(out of eighty who applied), were able to exhibit free of charge, on a monthly
rotation basis. The spaces have also been used by public bodies and by such
associations as Brescia Musei (Brescia Museums), the municipal Department for
school and Brescia con Gusto.
An interesting element of the project worth considering is the process of emu-
lation (“contagious effect”) noticed within the context of the historic town centre
that has led some owners of the vacant stores, who were not affiliates to the project,
to keep their own unused spaces lighted up and in conditions consistent with
protection of the decorum of the historic town centre.
Pop Up Lab, Toscana
Pop Up Lab is an experimental bottom-up project of new practices of temporary
reuse of abandoned spaces in Tuscany’s historic town centres. The initiative, with a
social and cultural matrix, activated in 2014, exploits the local creative resources,
involving the local bodies through four phases:
1. Recovery of vacant spaces: identification of closed and unused surfaces found in
the historic town centres and making them available for the project, thanks to the
agreement with the owners;
2. Collection of new ideas: launch of a call for ideas open to individuals and
groups, formal and informal, who put forward proposals and projects aimed at
reactivating the unused units;
3. Promotion of the riaprire la città (reopen the city) action: the winners of the call
for ideas (pop uppers) use the spaces earmarked for them to implement the ideas
submitted for free, and organize social, cultural and retail activities for the first
three days of the event, with the possibility of keeping their activity operational
throughout the following month (Fig. 2.18);
4. “Creating of connections” through the organisation of workshops, exhibitions,
workshops, performances, and informal moments of dialogue with experts.
The regional Authority for the warranty and promotion of participation took also
part in the project, which saw the affiliation of six Municipalities in the provinces of
Fig. 2.18 Reuse practices. Source http://www.popuplab.it/
Florence, Pistoia and Pisa (from Empoli to Campi Bisenzio, from Cascina to
Quarrata, having between 26,000 and 48,000 inhabitants) with a role of collabo-
rative governance, where the administrations identify vacant spaces and, consen-
sually with the owners, place them at the disposal of the initiative.
The Pop Up Lab project was financed up to 60% by the Tuscany Region and for
40% apportioned among a number of Municipalities, and has involved about fifteen
open spaces in each city, with an average age of participants of 30 years. The
project activities ranged from a dressmaking lab that makes use of technologies and
sewing machines, to co-working spaces; from gardening courses to reuse of skills in
the carpentry sector to create a line for surfers and skaters. In the process, the
various Municipalities showed an active role, which, in some instances, incen-
tivized the private subjects to sell the spaces with tax relief, and, in other instances,
contributed to the project directly.
Returnable vacancy, Mantova
The Sfitto a rendere (Returnable Vacancy) initiative has been promoted by a young
association called RUM—Rianimazione Urbana Mantova (Mantua’s Urban
Regeneration), that comprises skills involving architecture, communication, econ-
omy and history. The project was included in a process that in June 2014 involved
both RUM and the city of Mantua (49,308 inhabitants, Istat, January 2017) in the
“Hai del sale? (Do you have any salt?)” project, that was awarded the tender
organized by “Tempo ai Giovani (Time to young People)” (call: “Culture as a
common asset”), with the aim of enhancing neighbourhood relationships, and
cooperation in sharing material goods (bicycles, books, objects and products) as
well as immaterial ones, such as know-how, skills and knowledge. Together with
the “Hai del sale?” proposal, the Cariplo tender also funded the “Returnable
Vacancy” intervention that ensures continuity with the route pursued, focusing
more on the critical aspects of voids in the urban fabric.
The first action meant to activate a monitoring body on vacant spaces, mapping
out the retail divestments found in Mantua’s historic town centre. The survey
updated the Confcommercio 2009 data, and reflected a geography of 145 divested
retail spaces, amounting to 32% of the municipal territory, with a worsening trend
of 6 activities closed in 5 years (Fontana 2016).
Fig. 2.19 Decal and RUM’s web portal. Source http://www.sfittoarendere.it
In September 2014, the intention of various owners to place the vacant stores at the
disposal of the project on a free of charge loan over a limited period, from one to three
days, was ascertained through the La vetrina che vorrei (My favourite shop-window)”
initiative. Through a process of involvement and sensitisation towards the issues of
urban regeneration, the RUM association utilized a tool kit of procedures and cost
estimate for temporary reopening processes of retail units that involved three levels of
detail: external space, exhibition layer and internal surface (Fig. 2.19).
The reflection on the different contractual types has steered RUM towards
contracts interest-free loans for use (with user charges resting on the user) for the
instances of intervention from one to seven days. As for the intermediate instance of
a month’s lease, two possibilities have been envisaged: an interest-free loan for use
or a regulated rental, where RUM acts as a mediator between lessee and landlord. In
both instances, utilities are excluded and the regeneration timeframe does not
exceed one month (lest the fees of registration with the Tax Office be incurred).
Lastly, for longer-term projects (four months), a “contract of temporary lease for
other than residential use”, with an escalating monthly rental (utilities excluded),
has been envisaged.
In continuity with the previous actions, in September 2015, the experimental
project “ideAzione” was activated with the aim to develop the historic town centre
and the purpose of facilitating the temporary openings of vacant spaces, as well as
of attracting new subjects and new activities, in order to combat the high costs for
entrepreneurs to enter in the local market. “IdeAzione” materializes in the activation
of a shared working space that hosts six professionals linked to the arena of cre-
ativity and the digital sector in a reality describable as co-working. The subjects
involved, several fixed tenants and three rotating ones, work together in order to
contribute to the redevelopment of the historic town centre through events and
activities that generate a leverage effect capable of involving the various local
stakeholders.
Lastly, an urban regeneration intervention promoted by RUM envisaged to

cooperate with Ufficio Mantova e Sabbioneta Unesco world heritage, and involved
a vacant space identified in the central context of Via Verdi. From December 2015
to March 2016, the former divested surface hosted the “Mantova e Sabbioneta
Heritage Center” dedicated to the Unesco site where the institutional activities were
presented to the citizens, introducing Mantua’s role as the 2016 Italian capital of
culture.
Appendix
Milan: former garage Traversi, Via Bagutta
Specific project Implementing subject and Type of action Policy

features role innovation
Type Action Direct Indirect
incentives incentives
Functional Public/ Public protection: – For the Use of the Rendering of
reuse and private Building declared medium-size deduction of two
building to be of historic- retail planning fees transformative
restructuring artistic interest structure for works of scenarios
without Attention-seeking scenario: an redevelopment Use of the total
demolition of a behaviour by the endowment of another monetization
large divested public regulator of private central urban of the parking
container and by the private parking areas context (direct area
located in the operator in not required realisation of a endowment
historic town compensatory (for covered required for
centre terms localisation swimming pool large-size retail
within the with annexed structures,
scope of servizices) as mainly devoted
limited traffic guarantee of to the
zones) percentage part enhancement
– For the of territorial of the mobility
large-size endowment system and the
retail existing
structure parking areas
scenario: the
total
monetization
of parking
areas
required by
the regional
legislation in
force is
envisaged
(200% slp)
Appendix 73
Venezia: Fondaco dei Tedeschi, San Marco district
Specific project Implementing subject and Type of action Policy

features role innovation
Type Action Direct incentives Indirect
incentives
Project of Public/ Leading role Permit to build in Issue of retail Public use
redevelopment and private played by the derogation from authorisation of part of
re-functionalisation public subject with the urban for large retail the retail
of a large divested an investigative planning structure structure
container located in and evaluative role instrumentation directly from Format
the historic town of the commission in force on the municipal integrated
centre and the grounds of public Suap (one-stop with cultural
technical-scientific interest, in business and creative
committee compliance with advisory centre) productions
established at the the landscape for localisation (annual
ministry of cultural and in the historic scheduling)
heritage and historical-artistic town centre (cf.
activities and constraints Regional Law
tourism Veneto 50/
2012, Articles
19.4, 21.5)
Pioltello (Milan)
Specific Implementing subject Type of action Policy innovation

project and role
features Type Action Direct Indirect
Closing as a Public Publicly Regulatory: Contractual Introduction of a
result of owned introduction type new service
relocation of Responsibility of a new between function for the
the market of public body urban use public community
context category bodies and Incentive
Town Awarded private mechanism for
planning surface rights businesses energy efficiency
redevelopment to new public in the
Unitary and type services redevelopment of
agreed and activities the abandoned
management building
Castellanza (Varese)
Specific Implementing subject Type of action Policy innovation

project and role
features Type Action Direct Indirect
Closing as a Mixed Responsibility Regulatory: Economic: Activation of the
result of and decisions retail use Public public auction
relocation of of public body confirmed auction to method to reassign
the market Fixed identify economic value to
context ceiling rent subjects an abandoned
Retail willing to building
valuation (new rent the Introduction of a
type of non building new functional mix
food based Fixed ceiling rent
sale and established for the
supply re-use of abandoned
activities) building
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Chapter 3
Re-activating Retail Spaces: A Toolbox
for Strategies, Policies and Pilot Projects
Abstract The current appearance of vacancies and dead malls, which affects cities
and suburban areas all across Europe and Italy, should be used as an opportunity to
re-think the usual planning approach to retail and its spaces. An alternative model
would pay more attention to both spatial and regulative aspects, as argued in the
forthcoming paragraph. For this reason, we will then propose a toolbox including
guidelines and policy approaches aimed at re-activating suburban big boxes and
urban retail districts. The final part is devoted to highlighting the potential role of
retail spaces as an engine to re-activate public life and local economies in con-
temporary cities, as well as a driver enhancing their attractiveness for inhabitants,
city-users and tourists.
3.1 Innovating the Planning, Spatial and Regulative

Approaches to Retail Spaces
The current European and national scenario of the distribution sector is charac-
terized by spatial policies and configurations traceable to both a progressive
modernisation of urban services and the exclusive regional and metropolitan
jurisdiction in the field of retail localisation policies. Another characteristic lies in
the presence plural and articulated settlement forms, as well as a geography of the
offer increasingly more organised by complementarity and by accumulations, where
the territorial boundaries of competition do not coincide with the administrative
perimeters of municipalities or provinces, but are rather determined by the spatial
concentration of demand and by its mobility.
Consistently with these dynamics and orientations, the regulation of planned
commercial aggregates and of local retail necessarily intertwines with the issues of
spatial planning and urban planning management, starting from diverse needs that
frequently do not coincide, in the difficult balance between requirements in terms of
protection of competition and freedom of economic initiative, obligations and
constraints of municipal budget, territorial governance and safeguard of the
historical-architectural and cultural heritage. A series of mooted issues in the public

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70872-0_3
78 3 Re-activating Retail Spaces: A Toolbox for Strategies …
policies of localizing orientation of urban economic activities, in fact, intersects

with a substantial (and often structural) lack of concrete integration between urban
planning policies, the prescriptive measures of local taxation, and the processes of
administrative simplification and economic liberalisation, within a shared frame-
work of protection and balancing of public and private interests.
Within a context of governance of the territory frequently characterized by tradi-
tional and residual forms of economic planning of the offer of hardly practicable
private services, the need emerges for a radical rethinking of the practices of regulation
of retail buildings and surfaces from the viewpoint of a measurable urban planning,
social and economic sustainability of interventions, methodologically leaning towards
an approach of qualitative and evaluative nature and towards governance of the
negative externalities, in line with the current EU and State legislative framework.
The possibility of introducing formal tools to analyse costs and benefits of the
regulation (Regulation Impact Analysis) (OECD 2009) and of expressing the “zero
impact” methodology of territorial assessment of the direct and indirect effects is
already found in some regional enactments for the intergrated verification of the
externalities of the new retail polarities and in other economic sectors, falling within
exclusive regional and municipal jurisdiction. To these belong the settlement of
new logicistics hubs (e.g. the cross-docking distribution method substituting for the
traditional productive one), the e-commerce platforms, the planning of supply
activities to be governed, for instance, when they are accumulated upon pedestrian
axes and public spaces opening at night-time (nightlife effect), and to be facilitated
when they represent a concrete integration to processes of innovation, including the
social and the food sectors (Augé 2015; Maffei et al. 2016). These examples of new
urban polarities and economies, closely linked to the regulation of the public soil,
might solicit a concrete action to govern their negative impacts, attenuate the
proliferation of redundant and ineffective sectoral rules, and represent a non-banal
outcome of new regional scale policies, consistent with the implementation of the
Services in the Internal Market Directive. This justifies regulatory and planning
interventions, within an economic context only in the presence of objective and
tenable “imperative motives of general interest”, always in compliance with the
principles of non-discrimination and proportionality.
Within this framework, some of the current trends and dynamics of resilience of
retail services (Bristow 2010; Dolega and Celinska-Janowicz 2015; Erkip et al.
2014; Fernandes and Chamusca 2014; Salgueiro and Erkip 2014; Simmie and
Martin 2010; Wrigley and Dolega 2011) within a European and Italian context may
be exemplified through two main qualitative elements of particular interest:
• the rediscovery of the urban space, in the sense of a laboratory to critically
re-think growth and dynamically reconfigure the link between spatiality and
economic and civic development (Katz and Bradley 2013), which sometimes is
not a foregone conclusion of the strong international exposure that presently
characterizes several cities (Bolocan Goldstein 2016; Calafati 2014; Taylor
2013), and as privileged context in which to explore urbanity as transformative
potential (Balducci et al. 2017; UN Habitat 2010), constantly re-generated and
3.1 Innovating the Planning, Spatial and Regulative Approaches … 79
reinvented by the urbanisation processes underway (Brenner and Schmid 2015).

We should underline that the current scenario of crisis and contraction is also
characterized by the non irrelevant asymmetries associated with the back-to-city
phenomena (new potential forms of gentrification, selective accessibility to
goods and services, rise of social inequalities) that affect placemaking processes
(Florida 2017) and urban regulation practices (Secchi 2013). For instance,
dealing with the lines of strength that have guided and still guide changes in
retail (Consonni 2007) and the functional mixes, already present and underway
in the new retail polarities, in their capacity as extremely mobile spaces for their
centrality in economic processes (Gabellini 2010), means to reflect on some
emerging elements. In the first place, the new season of active policies of revival
of attractiveness and urban quality represents a response strategy to these altered
contextual conditions, where the processes of reuse and urban planning rede-
velopment (Campos Venuti 2010) of the relevant and problematic heritage of
molecular divestment (Lanzani 2015) often have a strong influence on public
decision. In particular, the presence of abandoned micro spaces on ground floors
and in containers with a high level of underutilization, seen as a novel form of
“anticity” (Boeri 2011), in urban fabrics (including in areas of the historic town
centre) and in pulverized forms of extra-urban context, as well as on traditional
market roads no longer competitive, invite us to forcefully re-consider the
paradigm of the link between city planning and growth (Pasqui 2017).
• A second feature of the current evolutionary scenario is a new virtuous rela-
tionship between retail services, creative and cultural productions and inte-
grated training processes (Bruzzese and Tamini 2014; Cook 2009; Gasnier
2014; Santagata 2015). In the current articulated urban planning, social and
economic set-up, it acquires a role transcending the simple spatial accumulation
of different productive activities, and it provides the local population with a
qualitative endowment of services, generating urbanity, as well as a space of
interaction, aggregation and collective time (Jessen and Langer 2012; Kärrholm
2012; Tamini 2011). The mentioned dynamics underway open up a planning
reflection on the design of new urban centralities and on the strategies of
enhancement of proximity services (ATCM 2013; DCLG 2012; Gasnier 2010;
Morandi 2011), that, from a gravitational viewpoint are capable of attenuating
the extended outflows of expenses towards the extra-urban territory.
Within this framework, the retail and other urban economic activities preserve
and expand a socially unifying function: they are not public city in a narrow sense,
but represent places where a plurality of “life in public” activities take place and, in
a rich variety of forms, keep on denoting potentially and variously “central” spaces
in the local community systems. The in-depth analysis of some recent dynamics
enabled us to closely observe the decisive contribution of the integrated function of
retail to the vitality of several urban areas where the preservation or the introduction
of economic activities ensures levels of complexity, structuring and vitality of
important segments of the city, whereas the decay of local retail concentrations may
trigger or aggravate the degradation of entire urbanized areas (Jacobs 1961; Lepik
and Bader 2016; Koolhass 2006). District intensity, reuse, centrality and integration
represent four potential keywords to describe and interpret the scenarios engendered
by the strong change underway in the relationship between retail and city.
The tendencies and dynamics currently in progress on a European and Italian
level within the scope of spatial aggregation of urban economic activities focus
upon a few qualitative elements:
• a novel season of active policies for re-launching urban attractiveness
• the enhancement of proximity systems as new constituent blocks of the public
city
• a novel virtuous relationship between retail, creative and cultural industries as an
opportunity for transformation, qualitative reconversion and town planning
redevelopment of the consolidated and historical fabric
• a renewed planning reflection on the design of new urban centralities.
Against this background and for quite a number of years, the public and private
agenda has mainly been orientated towards four design issues and keywords cap-
able of establishing quality and new urbanity:
• district intensity, founded on the role of retail districts of attractiveness (Bruzzese
et al. 2016), as tools of governance (Zanderighi 2004), in the sense of active fields
for testing multi-sector policies of integrated enhancement of the territory (Roca
et al. 2015), frequently expressed as local systems of creativity (Santagata 2015);
• reuse, motivated by the need to develop suitable skills for perceiving, under-
standing and mobilizing the existing heritage in regeneration processes (Jackson
and Hughes 2015; Portas 2011), in terms of both unified and coordinated
management and a viewpoint of competitive reinforcement of the city and
creation of value (Campagnoli 2014);
• centralities, understood as generators of urbanity and communal time through
spatial hybridization and complementariness between proximity services and
activities associated with culture, training and activity. More in detail, places
that facilitate ties between citizens, local economic operators and cultural pro-
motion subjects (Paris 2018) often take shape as concrete community centres
(Kärrholm 2012);
• integration, as a continuous interaction between tools of territorial governance,
the dynamic dimension of real processes of urban transformation, and multi-
farious sectors, as part of a circular learning game and concrete synergy between
public and private interest (Bruzzese and Tamini 2014; Heurkens 2014; Moati
2011).
District intensity
This topic elicits the need to reiterate the role of urban districts, as tools of concrete
governance and coordinated management of local concentrations of integrated
offers, intending them not as inert containers, but rather as something to turn into
active fields in which multi-sector policies can be experimented.
Within a context characterized by a growing weakness in consumption levels,
reduced availability of public and private resources, scant integration between
active policies of retail services and territorial governance tools, and by the lack of
actions and policies on inter-district cooperation, the retail services district asso-
ciated with urban attractiveness has proven to be an effective tool of active policy in
several national and international instances.
In fact, the main potentialities of a district policy focus on two main aspects. In
the first place, on enhancing the integrated vocation (commercial, artisanal, cultural,
tourist, and providing urban and territorial services) of the area targeted by inter-
vention, and on the opportunity to envision the district as an operational tool of local
governance with a view to supporting new policies in favour of urban attractiveness.
The second asset focuses the possibility of enlarging the profile of district
partners capable of consolidating the experience and evolution of district actions by
providing a value added, as well as on the role of the urban district as a regulatory
subject (e.g. public and private accessibility, pedestrianizations, ZTL (limited traffic
zones) areas, monitoring of flows, security, opening and closing times of outlets,
and others), and on the professional profile of the district Manager as qualitative
result of integrated training programs.
Within this framework of action, the public arena is characterized by the con-
structive role played by the Regions within the sphere of economic and territorial
promotion of the themes of urban attractiveness, as well as by the municipal
dimension of expressing active policies (in the interaction between retail, produc-
tive activities, tourism, territorial marketing, town planning, mobility, culture), in
partnership with the professional associations (retail, supply, food and non-food
craft, service craft, medium- and large-sized retail chains), private foundations,
consortia of real estate owners, and urban district managers.
The evolutionary scenario of urban district intensity highly depends on the nature
of future evolution of active policies, aimed at a synergistic or confrontational
approach between a collaborative or competitive dimension among districts, through
a mechanism of public dissemination of qualitative results that guided the actions of
districts, and with the ability to make the circuit triggered by virtuous districts.
Other topics of future orientation may be embodied, for instance, in the moot
question of how much and in which manner could the “social” function intersect
with the district policies, especially in the more problematical and critical urban
areas characterized by less attractiveness (urban suburbs, administrative border
settings, low-density territorial contexts), and by which means to accomplish a
greater integration between retail and urban and territorial planning policies, also in
order to enhance the retail district, as an “investment product” for new economic
operators.
In one of the experiments underway on the issue, in the municipal urban
planning tool the urban retail district is classified as an objective of public regu-
lation, through a technical argument associated with the definition of the “imper-
ative motives of general interest”, introduced by the Services in the Internal Market
Directive 2006/123/EC, with a perspective of containment of soil consumption and
facilitation of urban regeneration processes.
Within the perimeter of the Bergamo urban district, divided into four polarities
essentially corresponding to the ancient formation nuclei, the previously quoted
directive made it possible to allocate a series of urban planning premiums, linked to

novel and innovative forms of economic compensation, managed directly by the
control room of the district, and focused on some elements of innovation within the
following regulatory context:
• a redefinition of the settlement weight and the areas for public services through a
significant reduction and/or elimination of the obligation to find the minimum
endowments of public parking areas and/or parking areas for public use (or of
their partial or total monetization) in the instances of functional variation for the
settlement of retail activities, of medium- and large-size as well, in the presence
of certain conditions of good public and pedestrian accessibility. This issue, as
already noticed when analysing the case studies of this volume, acquires a
strategic character for the reuse of the large divested containers within a central
historic context, inasmuch as it represents a concrete opportunity for reviving
urban attractiveness compared to the outflows of expenditure towards the
extraurban polarities found in many urban contexts;
• new models of functional indifference in the changes of intended use on the
ground floors with a view onto public space (up to 250 m2), as incentive for the
policies of reuse of vacant spaces in the urban fabric,1 enabling the different
functions to be located both in the fabrics of the old and modern City, of the
consolidated City and in the district polarities, except for the excluded uses
(residence and wholesale retail);
• introduction of a new urban planning discipline for the settlement of
medium-sized retail structures, diversified and linked to the size of the retail
surfaces of the medium-size surfaces to be settled in the fabrics of the historic
old and modern city, of the consolidated city and in the district polarities,
envisaging differentiated provisions of parking areas, and different methods of
issuing urban planning-building and retail authorisations, giving preference to
the expansion of the existing structures and introducing economic modes of
compensating for the impacts (Fig. 3.1) towards the urban retail district through
the application of authorization criteria.
Urban centre and retail dismantling
Focusing on the issues of retail dismantling and the presence of several vacancies
within the consolidated urban tissues, the need emerges to develop suitable skills
for perceiving, understanding and mobilizing the existing heritage in urban revival
and regeneration processes, in terms of unified coordination, as well as from a
viewpoint of the competitive reinforcement of the city.
1
A topic tackled with public determination in the recent regional pilot-projects of Lombardy “Fare
impresa in franchising in Lombardia” and “STO@ 2020—Successful Shops in Town-centers
through Traders, Owners & Arts Alliance”, aimed at granting contributions for innovation inter-
ventions in support of the revival of retail activities in urban areas through the recovery of vacant
spaces found inside urban districts.
Fig. 3.1 Municipality of Bergamo, variant to the municipal urban planning tool, July 2017: the 4
polarities of the urban retail district and the urban market. Source URB & COM Lab, Politecnico
di Milano, The revenue agency (Agenzia delle Entrate), observatory of the real estate market, 2015
In many different urban contexts, we may observe a progressive phenomenon of

disuse of a plurality of neighbourhood and supply outlets, of medium and large
retail facilities, occasioned by the growing reduction of purchasing power by area
users, by saturated conditions of offer, and by the strong territorial competition
between distribution formats that has sped up the obsolescence of less recent and
already hardly attractive vacant shops.
In the current phase of pronounced economic crisis, a plurality of urban and
central contexts is increasingly characterized by an underestimated phenomenon of
progressive disuse of ground floors generated, in the first place, by a lack of
district-based distribution of the offer and by the scarcely flexible dynamics of the
urban rental market. A contribution to these problematic aspects stemmed from the
“peripheral” positioning compared to the primary and secondary geographies of the
urban offer of retail and supply services and from recent processes of
de-localization of important general services within an historical centre context
(such as—for example—banking services associated with the professional office
context). The weakness of sign protection and the reduction in the attractive and
real estate value of non-active shops have additionally had significant collateral
effects (e.g. a gradual block of the retail real estate market with an increase in the
assimilation times and a marked dip in values) hardly manageable without a unified
and coordinated strategy.
From this perspective, the mapping of the central urban localization opportu-
nities generated by the geography of non-active and disused economic activities,
the possibility of new spatial concentrations between small adjoining disused sur-
faces, the use of a reward system in favour of the central localization of
medium-size retail facilities found in some municipal town planning instruments,
the birth of new integrated urban formats of offer, the activation of subsidised
regional procedures for retail enterprises undergoing a crisis, the existence of a
higher endurance and resistance capacity in the more integrated and concentrated
urban economic systems compared to the more dispersed ones that are more vul-
nerable to terminations of business, may all represent concrete planning opportu-
nities on which to focus an integrated intervention policy.
Within this problematic scenario, the public arena is structured around different
roles and objectives expressed, firstly, by the retail businesses undergoing a crisis, by
the pulverized system of real estate property and institutional investors, by the
Municipalities and by the Region, by the professional associations, by the urban
development and promotion companies, by the retail companies with urban protection
and brand, down to the chamber system potentially playing a leading role in the process
of integrated enhancement of its own real estate assets and by a progressive
strengthening of the role played by the real estate sector in monitoring the phenomenon.
The evolutionary scenarios of the phenomenon are mainly characterized by the
activation of demalling urban projects focused on reuse, integration and redevelop-
ment interventions, replacement of containers and surfaces affected by disuse and
cessation of business activity, by projects aiming at the revival and repositioning of
historical urban galleries, at the creation of urban competition effects between prox-
imity offer areas, at the configuration of new urban retail, service and tourism Districts
channelled by the activation of a public/private structure of unified and coordinated
management of large, medium and small-size retail vacancies (Christensen 2008;
Dunham-Jones and Williamson 2011; Parlette and Cowen 2011; Techentin 2003).
An approach to the issue of reuse of divested retail spaces in an urban context is
the one that emerged in the guidelines and outcomes of the design contest “for
combating retail divestment and reintegrating the fragments of the historic city
centre”, promoted at the end of 2015 by the Municipality of Sittard (37.730
inhabitants, January 2011) in Holland (Fig. 3.2). The invitation to tender identified
retail divestment as an urban problem, one that did not only concern the distribution
sector but was understood as a critical spatial issue with a negative impact on the
entire city centre context, by creating discontinuity in the system of fronts, and a
sense of insecurity and decay for the viability of the historic town centre. The aims of
the project were ascribable: (a) to the consolidation and reinforcement of the
attractiveness of the historic town centre from a perspective of competing with other
medium-size cities in the area (such as Maastricht, for example); (b) to the reinte-
gration of the urban fabric, fragmented by large road axes that prevent the continuity
of pedestrian flows and, accordingly, limit the perception of the centre as a unified
context; (c) to the recovery of existing retail spaces, viewing the centre as a suitable
place for hosting economic functions that provide service to the entire city and its
inhabitants.
Fig. 3.2 Comune di Sittard (NL), set foot in Sittard. Source http://phidias-cooking.pro/set-foot-in-
sittard-old/ (3rd Prize: “Slow City”, Sgs associati), 2015
Due to the above factors, the participants were solicited to formulate some
possible ideas to oppose this phenomenon and to suggest solutions in order to avoid
the shutdown of the activities, while simultaneously attempting to recover the ones
already divested. In the design topics, in fact, they were requested to put forward a
series of design visions for the city of Sittard, aimed at tackling the issue of the
strong presence of divestments within the historic town centre, framing the possible
solutions within a strategic proposal dealing with the historic town centre as a
unified system, i.e. the integration between retail and mobility policies, where the
skills associated with sectoral contexts (mobility, pedestrian areas, parking facili-
ties, etc.) might generate complex designs able to create a coherent system based on
the features of the place and its potentialities, integrating with the already existing
regeneration projects for the area.
Retail services as urban centralities
Moving from a shared consideration that the project of public city has in several
instances remained unfinished, particularly with regard to the design of communal
spaces and equipment, the recent design and settlement processes observed across
the territories show how the introduction of new elements attracting the flow of
users into the weak local offer geography has regenerated the competitive profile of
the central and consolidated urban fabric. In this sense, the current design and
evolutionary context of the new retail formats leans towards the design of places
with an integrated and multi-purpose character regenerating important flows of
urban multi-users. In some recent projects, we may notice the configuration of new
urban centralities redesigning the qualitative vocation of public space (from a place
making and place management perspective) and contributing to the gravitational
attractiveness of the local set up for purposes of both town planning, settlement and
spatial regeneration and competitive repositioning and urban sign protection.
While, from a viewpoint of entrepreneurial dynamics, structural transformations
of the service sector make inroads into the job market, professionalism, social and
personal services, across the territory we notice new functional autonomies focused
on the offer of services and consumer goods, and characterized by processes of
social innovation, associated with the exceptional communal and popular value of
attractive containers. Retail services retain and amplify a socially unifying function:
they are not public city in a narrow sense, but represent places where a plurality of
“public life” activities are undertaken, and, in a rich variety of forms, they keep
denoting potential and variable “central” spaces in the settlement systems, even
when we are dealing with the large extra-urban containers, often new and unique
polarities of the diffuse city.
An in-depth analysis of some recent urban centrality projects enabled a close
look at the decisive contribution made by the integrated function of retail to the
vitality of several urban areas where the preservation or the introduction of service
ensures levels of complexity, structuring and vitality of important segments of the
city, whereas the decay of local offer might trigger or aggravate the degradation of
entire urbanized areas.
Exploration of a few key factors and the contextual conditions that have ori-
entated the projects of the new urban centralities (oftentimes closely related to the
residential proximity areas, Fig. 3.3) has ultimately brought to the fore a marked
complementariness between the following compositional and settlement elements:
• spatial integration and urban mix;
• town planning and architectural quality;
• settlement regeneration and substitution;
• public relevance of urban retail services;
• unified coordination and management of retail aggregates (district intensity).
Fig. 3.3 Markthal, Rotterdam, 2014: hybridisation of formats of offer and residential uses. Source
http://www.mvrdv.nl
Integration of retail policies in the territorial governance tools

Lastly, as regards the themes of integration, it is essential to make the territorial
governance tools (Municipal Town planning documents, building Regulations,
sector planning) open to smart and receptive changes compared to the dynamic
dimension of the real processes, thereby facilitating an ongoing interaction between
instruments and processes as part of a circular learning game.
One of the main critical areas that has emerged during the critical review of several
municipal town Plans in force consists in the restrictive interpretation of the concept
of “productive” and the attendant regulation of rezoning, as a result of a lack of
synergy between the liberalizing structure of the March 1998 retail reform (essentially
calibrated around functional indifference) and the constraints imposed on rezoning by
the productive versus other urban functions, which generates potential barriers, at the
entry point, to some transformative dynamics involving the city.
The public arena is defined by the active and planning role of municipal town
planning sectors (as structured around its multiple spheres of competence), by the
significant presence of technical-operational contributions expressed by the differ-
ent entrepreneurial associations, the professional associations, the control rooms of
the Urban Retail Districts and the Chambers of Commerce (e.g. in the promotion of
technical training programs for economic operators in conjunction with the
Municipalities).
As a first conclusion, we deem it proper to reopen the discourse around the role
retail services might play—in an integrated and complementary form—in order to
build urbanity and urban quality (Lanzani and Tamini 2000) with an attention open
to multiple stimulations.
This means, both for those engaged in research and those who regulate this
activity, transcending traditional sector approaches; putting in place methods of
observation and analysis of these activities, capable of drawing from a miscellany
of investigative forms, thereby lodging them within more general scenarios of urban
and economic transformation; recognizing the multiplicity of opportunities offered
by the territory and suggesting or building closer links between different interpre-
tative dimensions leaning towards deeper attention for the spatial, settlement and
territorial dimension.
3.2 Working on Retail, Re-activating the City: A Toolbox

for Public and Private Actors
In conclusion, in the light of the case studies introduced, and the national and
international good practices described in the previous chapters, it is possible to
define a “toolbox” which, moving from an integrated cognitive and interpretative
background (analysis tools), enables us to steer projects and policies (design tools)
within an urban planning and economic-commercial context, aimed at offering
some solutions, through the activation of pilot-projects, to the increasingly signif-
icant problem of vacant retail premises encountered both in urban centres and in
extra-urban contexts.
The reform processes orientated towards transcendence of rigid sector regula-

tions—in favour of a recovery of the planning dimension of the retail sector as part
of a more general plan of territorial governance—have undoubtedly facilitated the
process of modernisation of the distributive system and the development of new
forms of retail. What has however lacked both at local and regional level is the
capacity—of a cultural nature as well—to adapt tools and policies, by giving rise to
a new fully-fledged season of retail city planning.
In most of the instances, “retail” and “city planning” have experienced the retail
reforms by contenting themselves with complying with the obligations laid down
by the new legislation within a purely administrative logic, often without embarking
on innovative common paths that might enable—albeit within the scope of the
respective jurisdictions—the development of active policies and new tools. Even
against the growing phenomenon of divestments and the number of vacant retail
premises at urban and extra-urban level, the latter will be increasingly more nec-
essary to govern the processes bound to emerge on the territories as a consequence
of the changes underway in retail trade.
The construction of a “toolbox” presupposes the development of an integrated
strategy capable, on the one hand, of directly involving the urban set-up and the
spatiality of divested surfaces and, on the other hand, of defining a model of
participatory governance able to achieve positive results from the urban regenera-
tion interventions. In that regard and in conclusion of the work so far carried out,
we propose the following “toolbox” of new commercial city planning of divested
retail spaces and containers, in terms both of strategic policies and interventions and
of tools and projects.
3.2 Working on Retail, Re-activating the City: A Toolbox … 89
A. Strategic policies and interventions (software)

• Developing agreements with the owners of vacant spaces to define regulated
and subsidised rentals during the first months of lease, interest-free loans, the
draft of standard contracts aimed at absorbing the market of the divested asset as
well as the relationships between lessor and lessee, including the temporary
ones;
• Promoting partnership with associations to ensure shared projects and part-
nerships with the sector associations (retail, tourism, services), thereby con-
structing an inclusive model of local governance;
• Involving the different types of stakeholders in the recovery projects and, not
disregarding the use of new digital channels, creating awareness in the citizens
on the issue of the importance of the reuse of existing vacant spaces for the sake
of a correct and effective local action of urban regeneration;
• Defining local taxation incentives to activate new retail and craft businesses and
new creative and cultural productions, both through significant reductions in the
Tari tax (waste tax), stallages and advertising tax, and through changes of
intended use on non-onerous ground floors. Simultaneously trying out possible
increases of taxation on vacant spaces aimed at potentially reducing the
divestment times of unused real estate units;
• Suggesting alternative approaches to the subjects managing existing private
parking spaces for public use for the localisation and the provision of rest area
for new retail activities located in the pedestrianized historic town centre and/or
limited traffic zones;
• Disincentivize vacant spaces through the activation of tenders and public
resources capable of incentivizing urban regeneration interventions—especially
inside the historic and urban nuclei through the activation of tenders promoting
new retail enterprises and services to facilitate the settlement of new economic
activities;
• Designing training activities to support local entrepreneurs aimed at strength-
ening knowledge of the dynamics and evolutionary scenarios of retail services
and the new urban economies. Organization of creative workshops and labs in
the sense of initiatives to qualitatively occupy the vacant spaces, integrated also
with co-working activities and with business incubators;
• Creating a control room: establishment of a working group between public
subject and the plurality of private operators, in order to ensure flanking support
for reuse and urban regeneration projects and policies;
• Organizing public events and local festivals to foster dialogue within and out-
side the local community.
B. Projects and tools (hardware)

• Fostering sustainable urban mobility through the introduction of limited traffic
zones (permanent and temporary, limited freight traffic zones, etc.) in synergy
with the policies pertaining to qualitative development of urban and tourist
cyclability, which entails interception and permeability of flows;
• Development of interventions of progressive pedestrianization of retail routes
and public spaces within the urban and historical fabric with a view to incen-
tivizing pedestrian and cycling flows;
• Slowing down pedestrian and cycling flows: actions of slowing down fast
pedestrian and cycling flows, for the sake of a greater visibility of urban eco-
nomic activities;
• Ordinary and extraordinary maintenance of buildings with interventions of
development of the building heritage aimed at improving the architectural
context of the urban fabric;
• Interventions on the urban environment aimed at improving the quality, the
perception and the viability of public spaces within the compact fabric;
• Taking care of shop windows in the vacant ground floor promises through
lighting, roofing and dimming interventions utilizing methods and materials
such as to respect the aesthetic decorum of the building (in conformity with the
building Regulations);
3.2 Working on Retail, Re-activating the City: A Toolbox … 91
• Less and bigger unit: Additional urban building rights assigned as a premium to
the possibility of building unification of vacant surfaces adjoining the ground-
floors with a view to creating an increase in retail and crafts surface and
enhancing attractiveness;
• Temporary reuse: facilitating new temporary openings for varying periods (1–
3 days, 29 days, 4–6 months);
• Attractive and innovative retail formats within well-established urban areas and
historic centers: anticipation of urban approaches for the settlement of new
medium-size retail structures in vacant urban spaces and containers within a
perspective of redevelopment of the context, diversification and complemen-
tarity of the offer;
• Retail parking spaces, in particular for person with reduced mobility;
• Diversification and complementarity of the urban offer, through new forms of
proximity retail: definition of design approaches and guidelines for the activa-
tion of new commercial services of protection of residential proximity, by using
the opportunities generated by any dedicated regional tenders or by additional
building rights obtained as premium on the local level.
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Index
A E
Accessibility, 5, 10, 13, 46, 51, 52, 55, 56, Economic, 1, 3, 5, 7–10, 12, 13, 23–27, 29, 39,
62–64, 79, 81, 82 40, 43, 45, 47, 50, 56, 58–61, 64, 66–68,
Active policies, 1, 25, 64, 65, 79–81, 88 74, 77–84, 87, 89, 90
Actors, 15–17, 23, 24, 28, 29, 56
Assessment, 43, 63, 78 F
Authorization, 44, 46, 55, 82 Formats, 26, 32, 62, 83–86, 91
B G
Big boxes, 2, 5, 11, 25 Geography, 70, 77, 84, 85
Building, 3–7, 9–12, 16, 18, 24–26, 28–32, 34, Governance, 21, 23, 45, 59, 61, 64, 70, 77, 78,
40–44, 46, 49–54, 56–59, 64, 65, 68, 80, 81, 87–89
72–74, 82, 87, 90, 91
I
C Innovation, 27, 29–33, 44, 53, 59, 60, 63,
Case studies, 2, 9, 11, 12, 24–26, 82, 87 72–74, 78, 82, 86
Centrality, 52, 79, 86
City, 2, 11, 13, 14, 16–19, 22, 23, 25, 33, 38, L
40, 41, 43, 58, 63–65, 69, 70, 79, 80, 82, Landscape, 10, 41, 50, 51, 59, 73
84–88 Large scale, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 13, 23, 31
Community, 12, 21, 27, 28, 31, 51, 64, 73, 79, Localisation, 9, 44–46, 56, 67, 72, 73, 77, 89
80, 89
Competitive, 5, 10, 39, 63, 79–82, 85, 86 M
Consumption, 7, 10, 11, 25, 28, 40, 80, 81 Market, 2, 7, 8, 12, 19, 21, 23, 25, 26, 28, 29,
31, 33, 38, 46–49, 56, 58, 64, 71, 73, 74,
D 78, 79, 81, 83, 86, 89
Dead mall, 77 Medium-sized/Medium-size, 45–47, 52–59,
Decision-making, 8, 51, 56, 64 67, 72, 82, 84, 91
Demalling, 2, 9, 12, 23, 24, 52–54, 56, 84 Mobility, 41, 44, 46, 64, 72, 77, 81, 85, 90, 91
Desertification, 24, 29, 38 Municipality, 42–44, 50–52, 54–56, 58, 59, 62,
Design, 11, 18, 30, 42–45, 47–50, 53, 54, 57, 65, 66, 68, 83, 84
58, 65, 67, 79, 80, 84, 85, 91
Dismantling, 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 11, 12, 23, 29–33 P
Districts, 3, 14, 16, 17, 19, 26, 28, 60–63, Partnership, 13, 14, 16, 20, 28, 47, 60, 61, 63,
80–82, 84, 87 81

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70872-0
96 Index
Polarities, 24, 47, 60, 62, 78, 79, 81–83, 86 Small scale, 15, 23
Policy, 4, 24, 26, 27, 29–33, 63, 72–74, 81, 84 Stakeholders, 27, 66, 71
Practices, 1, 23, 65, 69, 70, 78, 79, 87 Strategy/Strategies, 1, 19, 23–28, 33, 52, 56,
Proximity services, 79, 80 61, 63, 79, 83, 88
Public policies, 2, 23, 78 Sustainability, 8, 10, 11, 53, 56, 62, 64, 78
Q T
Qualitative, 9, 39, 60, 61, 63, 78–81, 86, 90 Temporary, 12, 46, 65, 66, 68, 69, 71, 89–91
Quantitative, 4, 10, 64 Territory, 3, 38, 39, 44, 55, 56, 58, 59, 62, 64,
70, 78–80, 86, 87
R Tools/Toolbox, 2, 3, 13, 24, 25, 28, 31, 38, 59,
Regeneration, 23, 25, 27–29, 31, 64, 71, 80, 67, 78, 80, 81, 87, 88
82, 85, 86 Town centre, 3, 5, 23, 46, 65–73, 79, 84, 85, 89
Regulation/Regulatory, 9, 10, 30, 31, 33, 41, Town planning, 1, 3, 9, 10, 13, 16, 23, 30, 31,
46, 60, 61, 64, 73, 74, 77–79, 81, 82, 87 33, 61, 64, 73, 80, 81, 84, 86, 87
Retail desertification, 1–3, 13–15, 19, 25, 31 Transformation, 11, 21, 23, 25, 30, 31, 47, 55,
Retail dismantling, 1, 6, 11–14, 82 56, 80, 87
Retail spaces, 2, 11, 34, 68, 70, 84, 88 Transport, 5, 8, 10, 31, 44, 46, 64
Retail structures, 23, 45, 46, 52, 56, 57, 66, 72,
82, 91 U
Reuse, 11, 41, 42, 45–48, 50–53, 56, 57, 59, Urban planning, 41, 43–46, 56, 73, 77–79,
64–66, 68–70, 72, 79, 80, 82, 84, 89, 91 81–83, 87
Revitalisation, 60 Urban regeneration, 2, 33, 44, 70–72, 81, 88,
89
S Urban retail district, 82, 83
Services, 5, 8, 9, 15, 19, 21, 28, 31, 34, 40, 43, Urban retail system, 14, 23
46–50, 52, 60–65, 73, 77–79, 81–83, Users, 12, 20, 50, 53, 63, 83, 85, 86
86, 87, 89, 91
Shopkeepers, 2, 9, 16–19, 21, 25–28, 33, 34 V
Shopping mall, 2, 5, 6, 22, 23, 29, 31 Vacant, 9, 12, 15–20, 25–29, 32, 34, 38–40,
Skills, 70, 80, 82, 85 62, 64–72, 82, 83, 87–91

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SPRINGER BRIEFS IN APPLIED SCIENCES AND

TECHNOLOGY  POLIMI SPRINGER BRIEFS

ISSN 2191-530X ISSN 2191-5318 (electronic)

© The Author(s) 2018

Printed on acid-free paper

This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature

Milan, Italy Luca Tamini

1 Re-activation Strategies, Experiences from Europe and USA ...... 1

2.3 Recent Experiences: From Practices to an Integrated

Abstract The chapter contains a sort of inventory of experiences in which urban

An analysis of international best practices is fundamental to identify suitable active

© The Author(s) 2018 1

1.1 Before the Dismantling: Facing Threats

1.1.1 French Policies Against Retail Desertiﬁcation

The CDUC is composed of twenty members8:

1.2 During the Process: Supporting, Integrating

1.2.1 The EPARECA Case: The Lucien Sampaix Shopping

1 – Café, bar and tobacconist 150 m2.

Project time frame:

Low profitability scenario

High profitability scenario

1.3 Demalling: How to Re-activate Big-Boxes and Urban

1.3.1 Dismantled Big Boxes: Governance and Tools in U.S.

The dynamics observed in Lombardy and overall Italian context, as well as in

1. We will start with considerations on the location of new buildings, proposing a

1.3.2 The Vital’ Quartier Plan

The socio-economic and regional context

The role of SEMAEST within the program

addition to Paris city council. Consequently, a multiplicity of public actors are

• A protocol of understanding: an agreement offered to future owners, who

Table 1.2 Retail features of Belleville district (2003–2012)

Fig. 1.6 Avenue Gambetta: transformation from 2008 to 2014

1.3.3 An Innovative Legal Tool: Taxes on Closed Down

1.4 Reflecting on Cases: Strategies, Actors and Proposals

The stock of strategies listed in previous sections shows an interesting hetero-

1.4.1 From Case Studies to Policy Innovation

PLECdZ in Saragozza, containing cross disciplinary consideration of urban retail

appear to be useful and will limit investment by targeting shops/investors,

2. Marketing, communication and information in launching new dynamics

Appendix: Planned Centres: Medium and Large Scale

Avenida M40 shopping mall, Madrid (E)

Reasons for Implementing Type of action Policy

Closing/crisis of Private New The owners bought the shopping mall

Parque Warner Madrid Resort y Parks, Madrid (E)

Closing/crisis Public Ownership Participation Presentation of a

Sophienhof Shopping Mall, Kiel (D)

Reasons for Implementing Type of action Policy

Obsolescence Private Ownership Applications for Award

EPARECA Lucien Sampaix, Bagnolet (F)

Horizontal Public Ownership New retail Large scale Retail

Shannon Mall (Union Station Mall), Union City, GA, USA

Reasons for Implementing Type of action Policy

PECAB, Barcelona (E)

Reasons for Implementing Type of action Policy

Competition between Public Permit Identiﬁcation Favouring the

Brixton Village (UK)

Loss of format Private Ownership Loan Adoption of a flexible

SEMAEST Vital’Quartier, Belleville, Paris (F)

Wholesale Mixed Ownership Property Events/ Multi-channel

Liverpool One, Liverpool (UK)

Reasons for Implementing Type of action Policy

Urban Public Permit Regulatory/ Permits for new

Atrium Agency Brussels