Research projects

For a long time, the typical pedestrian zone was characterised by department stores, and later by inner-city shopping centres. Many other retail businesses were grouped around such fixed points. Uses such as housing, on the other hand, were relocated to other areas of the city. Such structures function less and less today. City centres have suffered a considerable loss of function due to the ongoing and comprehensive structural change. The impacts of altered consumer behavior, as well as the increasing homogeneity of inner-city offerings, particularly affect city centers and neighborhood centers. Many commercial tenants are struggling to pay their rents, meaning that city centres are threatened by a high vacancy rate, which affects landlords and tenants alike and has prompted politicians to look for solutions to revitalise city centres.

Following on from the project "Development of commercial rents in city centre locations in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic", the trends on the commercial property market will be extrapolated beyond 2023 in order to place short-term effects in a longer-term context. The current findings suggest that adjustment processes are currently, leading to a decrease in retail rental prices and an increase in vacancies. However, low rents and vacancies can certainly be an opportunity. The aim is to investigate whether the new rent structures will enable, for example, smaller retailers and local businesses to set up and stay in the vacant shops.

Specialist literature, market reports and press articles on current trends in the retail market are analysed. Rental price data from the retail market for North Rhine-Westphalian city centres is analysed at regular intervals using different data sets on asking rents and real market rents. Pedestrian frequencies classify the results and provide indications of changing location qualities in city centres. In addition to the prices, vacancy rates in the ground floor locations in case study cities are surveyed, which reflect and highlight the current market situation in the city centres particularly well. It can be shown which locations are particularly affected by vacancies and which new uses or functions are moving into vacant properties.

In addition, vacant shops from the funding program Sofortprogramm Innenstadt" Verfügungsfonds Anmietung" will be examined for the period after the subsidised rents expire. Interviews with experts will be used to discuss issues relating to the tenants' ability to remain in the location and rent adjustment processes.