Status: 04/01/2023 06:00 a.m
There are more and more gaping gaps in our inner cities. Online trading is calling brick-and-mortar retail into question. So that the city centers do not continue to become deserted, they have to change. But how?
February 2023, San Francisco. On Market Street near Union Square, San Francisco’s top shopping location, hundreds of tourists wait for the cable cars, the cable cars that serve as streetcars. And at the same time: massive functional losses, one empty store next to the other. The department stores Bloomingdales and Nordstrom are still open. Likewise the Westfield Shopping Center – but deserted. Under the impressive dome, once a meeting place for high society to eat and drink, to see and be seen, gastronomy has given up completely, only posters remind us of glorious times past. At a couple of tables, two people in front of their laptops – they’re obviously not here to shop.
People come to the city less often
The inner-city retail crisis is no longer just a problem for small, underdeveloped centers. It has long since arrived in the hitherto strong inner cities of the metropolises. It’s not a German problem either: in Great Britain, more than 400 department stores have closed in recent years, and more than 60 in the Netherlands. People’s shopping behavior has changed, and the Internet has firmly established itself as a shopping channel – with an even larger range and supposedly cheaper and more convenient.
Online retail accounts for almost 40 percent of sales in the range of products that are relevant to the inner city, i.e. the products that are mainly sold in the inner city centres. Income that stationary providers lack. With shopping, the main reason for visiting the inner cities is gone. People come to the city less often, the centers are emptying.
And not just since Corona. The number of department stores in Germany has fallen to around a third since 1994, numerous other closures have been announced, and Galeria is once again insolvent. Like Peek & Cloppenburg, Görtz and Salamander. This is reason to think about the development prospects of our inner city centres. How can they become attractions again? And what role do department store properties play?
Current inner city model not sustainable
Some of them are empty, as in Hamburg on Mönckebergstrasse. In the former department store there is only one special sale. The facade is secured with nets, the need for renovation is obvious. The Karstadt Sports building across the street was last used by creative people and cultural workers – and will be used again from April. The creative company, a municipal subsidiary, uses the property against payment of the additional costs. Artists have the opportunity to present their works in the most central inner-city location – at a hitherto unaffordable location. The building also offers space for debates on inner city development, for presentations of student work and – my special highlight! – for a roller skating disco. The completely different offer brings people to the city center who would otherwise have no reason to come here.
Because while some fear the decline of the inner cities with the retreat of the retail trade, the others are no longer reached. They can’t shop there because they don’t have the money, or they don’t want to shop there because they wear second-hand, buy less and more individually – or online. Our downtown centers have turned into monotonous malls, with pedestrianized streets whose function is to get people from store to store. Often in the same shops all over the country. This model is no longer sustainable.
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Inner cities need more diversity and a mix of uses
Due to inner city development driven by retail, our centers have lost their vitality and variety of uses. Functional losses now follow due to the withdrawal of trade. There is therefore a need for more diversity and a mix of uses in inner cities – both with regard to the centers as a whole and within individual buildings. Retail can still be important, but only in addition to culture and education, office and co-working, urban production, leisure, sports, health, public administration, hotels and housing, including assisted living.
Flexibility of use is important here: the adaptability of uses, their adaptability to changes in the inner-city use structure. In addition, networking and multifunctionality: connection of different functions and uses, permeability between public and private uses as well as between property and urban space, areas that take on different functions at different times of the day.
Added value next to consumption-free places
How can we create new added value and at the same time consumption-free places, integrative spaces and meeting places accessible to everyone? So far, it has been difficult for us to find space in our inner cities for uses oriented towards the common good, but at the same time our centers, as social culmination points, are central to the encounters between different people and milieus.
Uses that create identity and take up existing identities are important. Department stores, like churches, train stations and market squares, have been constants in the cityscape for decades and are therefore of architectural importance. The debate about its closure and subsequent use is emotionally charged, it is followed with great public attention and goes far beyond its economic importance and supply function. The loss of cherished businesses is perceived as a loss of home.
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Change requires a willingness to experiment
If the use of the department store is temporary, how can the buildings be preserved and continued to be used? The question of conversion is essential, not least with a view to protecting the climate and resources. Because the construction and building sector causes 40 percent of CO2 emissions and 60 percent of waste. Buildings that have lost their function can be given a second life through conversion and renovation, and demolition can be avoided.
The upcoming transformation requires the separation of traditional inner city images and dependencies. My colleague Stefan Postert from the Stadt + Handel planning office once wrote: Fear and concern for the tried and tested and the will to preserve must not determine our thoughts and actions for inner cities, but rather our imagination, our passion and our desire for experience. Stephen, I totally agree with you! I’m excited about the upcoming change processes, I’m looking forward to more variety of uses in our centers. But one thing is clear: the change will be fundamental and disruptive, it requires new ways of thinking, innovative strength, a willingness to experiment, creativity, a solution-oriented approach and openness. And courageous people who take the initiative and lead the way.
The transformation is a joint task
It is also clear that the transformation of our inner city centers is a joint task that requires new alliances of actors, new forms of co-creation and co-production. This is a question of the political will to change, creative ability and assertiveness. Access to the real estate is indispensable for the change of use, the willingness to participate and invest on the part of the real estate owners. The task of the municipalities is to manage transformation processes: to mediate between different actors and their logic of action, to break down blockages, to mobilize forces, to keep pushing. This ranges from informal coordination on incentive and funding instruments to legal frameworks and formal cooperation.
There are many good examples of what can come: In Oldenburg, a former department store is now a popular meeting place for urban society: with co-working, multifunctional usable areas, a market hall with space for gastronomy, readings and concerts and with outdoor seating in the public space . The conversion of the building has noticeably invigorated the environment, and long-distance shops have also found new functions. The development was driven by a local architect who, together with local partners, took the initiative for the project.
Citizens are committed to new uses
In Gelsenkirchen-Buer, too, the change of use is mainly due to civic commitment: people from the village bought the empty department store together. The listed building now houses a retirement home, the district library, the adult education center, a family counseling center, a fitness studio – and, as before, retail: in smaller shops, each with an entrance to the pedestrian zone. In Lübeck, the city bought the former Karstadt sports store in order to create additional classrooms and event rooms for the four old town grammar schools. In Neuss, the Rheinisches Landestheater and the district administration have moved into a former department store, in Berlin-Lichtenberg and Moabit apartments have been built on the upper floors of former department stores. The range of uses is large. And even if some of the space in almost all houses is being used by retailers again: its share is getting smaller and smaller.
There are no magic formulas for conversion. But good role models encourage change.
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