Nordicum - Real Estate Annual Finland 2012 | Page 25

Soul Searching Shopping centres are looking for a new identity that goes beyond commercial aspirations Here’s food for thought: could the future of shopping centres revolve around something other than shopping? Perhaps shopping centre could be the place where you go to meet friends, your home away from home. Besides restaurants and shops, the public sector could be very well represented there: hospitals, schools and libraries can easily link with the shopping centre’s core infrastructure. I n fact, the new, green trends of construction encourage new “superhubs” to be built to serve as the vibrant hearts of urban communities. “Everything under one roof” ideology is a good fit in the carbonconscious era, too. Shopping centres are not fighting this green revolution, either: from the looks of it, they are whole-heartedly embracing the change. According to the recent Shopping Centre Barometer, environmental responsibility is the most important trend affecting the business in Finland. The industry has been going green for a while now: environmental responsibility has been the most visible trend impacting the shopping centre business for many years. “Now about 94 % of respondents saw it as the most important change factor, which shows that the responsibility is being taken seriously and implemented in almost all shopping centres,” says Juha Tiuraniemi, Managing Director of the Finnish Council of Shopping Centres. Core Concerns Still, environmental issues can be controversial as well. In Finland in the past, commercial activity has focused in larger and larger units in locations which are quite detached from the existing urban structure. At the same time, the race is on between municipalities to see who will catch the big one: land the super-size shopping centre and energise the local economy. In such a scenario, it has become increasingly difficult to coordinate the development of commercial sites regionally, with rival municipalities looking out, primarily, for their own interests. However, there is a shared public interest in avoiding oversupply of shopping space and in securing ac- cess to the shopping centres by alternative means of transportation – meaning, in essence, that public transportation works well. As a consequence, middle-of-nowhere commercial construction is very