Sustainable Real Estate Development in the Age of E-commerce – Implications of the Structural Change and resulting changed Requirements for Retail Property

Zimmermann, Josef and Burkholz, Kilian (2019) Sustainable Real Estate Development in the Age of E-commerce – Implications of the Structural Change and resulting changed Requirements for Retail Property. IS THIS THE REAL WORLD? Perfect Smart Cities vs. Real Emotional Cities. Proceedings of REAL CORP 2019, 24th International Conference on Urban Development, Regional Planning and Information Society. pp. 693-702. ISSN 2521-3938

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Abstract

With regard to sustainable urban development and maintaining or developing the attractiveness of cities, the future viability of retail real estate is of great importance. Besides itsfunction of supply, itservesas aplace of residence, meeting point and a place of communication (often referred to as "third place"). Moreover, retail real estate contributes to the formation of urban centres, usually being found in central locations of cities, and is therefore decisive for developing both the townscape and urban attractiveness. However, the original function of a (retail) property is solely to meet the requirements of its users. Otherwise being unusable, all further criteria of sustainability lose their significance. From an investor’s perspective, value preservation and appreciation of real estate are the most important incentives for sustainable real estate development. Only if there is a demand for a particular use, an investor is willing to spend money on a property. In this sense, real estate can only be termed sustainable if its features meet the requirements of its present and future users. Therefore, project developers must already be able to anticipate today what property features will be in demand by its future users and whether there is a long-term demand for any particular use at all. In the retail sector, digitisation is inducing changes in demand. The close link between property operations, i.e. the utilisation to allow people buying goods, and stationary places is increasingly released due to the rise of e-commerce, where parts of stationary trade and consequently retail real estate becomes obsolete. The recent development of these markets forces the retail real estate industry to establish innovative andsustainable operation formats. The aim of this paper is to point out the implications of the structural change in the retail sector for real estate development as well as the resulting requirement changes for some exemplary operation formats. Currentempirical studies on retail property are focussing on the user, thus shedding some light on the specific market situation. The presented results show to what extent consumer demand for brick-and-mortar retailing has changed due to the possibilities of online retailing. The therewith emerging challenges for real estate industry in general are shown, in particular for the retail sector, and finally for urban development.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	user integration, e-commerce, real estate development, sustainability, structural change
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor H Social Sciences > HF Commerce T Technology > TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) T Technology > TH Building construction
Depositing User:	REAL CORP Administrator
Date Deposited:	28 Jan 2021 15:43
Last Modified:	28 Jan 2021 15:54
URI:	http://repository.corp.at/id/eprint/528

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