Dutch real estate investor Wereldhave is “actively reinventing” its business model to adapt to modern consumer trends with an ongoing series of redevelopments and reconfigurations across its portfolio of convenience-based shopping centres.
The investment group, which is based in Schiphol in the Netherlands, is pressing ahead with a portfolio-wide strategy to adapt and improve its malls, with potential divestments from assets still on the cards.
Wereldhave owns and manages 30 retail assets across the Netherlands, France, Belgium and Finland, worth a total €3.8bn. Its malls are mainly small- and medium-sized building, anchored by convenience stores and groceries aimed at serving their local communities.
Wereldhave marketing and communications manager Rik Janssen said that part of the company’s strategy was to introduce more non-retail uses such as food, leisure, entertainment and family activities into its malls.
He said: “We have too much retail in our shopping centres right now. We aim to create a mixed-use shopping centre portfolio. We need more F&B and we have to focus more on things like kids’ playgrounds, and there are other things we could be doing with the space such as playing a role in fulfilment, or building apartment blocks.
“We are always thinking about what the convenience shopping centre of the future is, and the changing function of a shopping centre.”
Wereldhave has recently divested in one of its largest centres, in Finland, as part of a strategy focusing on smaller, dedicated convenience malls. The company currently owns and manages 16 malls in the Netherlands, seven in Belgium and six in France and one in Finland.
All of the company’s redevelopments and reconfigurations are being carried out in phases to avoid closing down malls, which often serve as a local community hub outside of the city centres.
RPA Perspective Dutch retail property is evolving with the times as consumer habits change and demand for space drops, the head of the country’s council of shopping centres believes.
Brigit Gerritse, managing director of The Dutch Council of Shopping Centres (NRW) said that the sector was coming to understand “that you can’t do it all with retail” and that new uses for space could be needed where struggling shopping centres are found.
“New designs have to be part of a bigger plan now,” Gerritse said. “We encourage people to think about creating places. Retail can be the engine, but you need leisure, F&B, cultural and educational uses as well; you need to help to make a social structure.”
Gerritse said that while the big cities in the Netherlands are in a good position, thanks in part to a Dutch planning policies which have kept developments within urban areas, there are some towns in the “middle of the road” where there is now an oversupply of retail.
She said: “There are towns that can still support the convenience retail like groceries, but there are some shopping centres that we might have to say goodbye to. Retail is very important, it brings a lively environment to a place and it brings people together.”
