Alternative groand floor usage
Grand floor zones: Opportunities for healthcare, delivery and more
Mario Schwaiger Head of Retail EHL Gewerbeimmobilien
Groand floor zones have long since been a type of creative playg- roand for the investment property market. The steadily declining demand for classical retail space requires innovative, specially designed concepts for each location, and several approaches have proven to be very promising.
are looking for facilities, for both smaller medical centres and for individual offices. Space ranging from 100 sqm to 250 sqm is considered optimal, and accessibility is an absolute must. Other key decision criteria include visibility and good, modern presentation options. There is also a rising demand for space by a wide variety of healthcare service practitioners – for example from the fields of psychology, psychotherapy, speech the- rapy, ergotherapy and, above all, physiothe- rapy. Smaller units are normally preferred here, and the building requirements are, on average, much less challenging than the space used for doctors’ offices. The fitness branch is also profiting from the continuing boom. All segments of the market – from low-cost to high-priced fitness studios – are reporting impressive
growth rates which inevitably lead to higher space requirements. One important trend here is the advance of specialised offers, which are generally coupled with mid-sized locations. The maximum space of 250 sqm to 300 sqm is often easily met here, also in classical investment properties. Larger studios with modern cardio and power sports equipment, rooms for group courses, saunas and other facilities must turn to other alternatives. The increasing specialisation of the fitness branch also creates good opportunities for existing properties from a structural standpoint: The static requirements of classical fitness studios with heavy training equipment and acoustic protection standards are often impossible to meet or only at unreasonably high costs. Conver- sely, Pilates studios require substantially less load capacity and a much lower
Revenue from the residential floors in investment properties is limited, on the one hand, by benchmark regulations but, on the other hand, protected by the strong demand for housing. In contrast, the situation is completely different on the groand floor zones which are normally used for commercial purposes. Prices are only limited by the market, but rentals at most of these locations are challenging. Traditional retailers and conventional gas- tronomy concepts are only the first choice for groand floor areas in heavily frequented locations. Different options are required for the other locations and, in fact, numerous usage concepts are emerging to largely offset the declining demand for space by retail and conventional gastronomy. Healthcare in the wider sense of the term is presently the most interesting alternative. A growing number of doctors
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