If a residential complex is focused only on the demand from its residents, then the design usually includes about 5% of the retail space of its area, adds Kozlova. According to Evgenia Prilutskaya, Deputy Director of the CORE.XP Infrastructure Retail Department, the share of commercial space occupied by developers ranges from 4% to 7%.
“The optimal provision of residents with commercial space is about 520-550 square meters per thousand residents. In the calculations, we include the average frequency of visits to the project's commercial infrastructure per week. As a rule, these are 2-3 visits per week,” Shuvalov adds.
If the residential complex is located near a transport hub or a metro station with a lot of pedestrian traffic, in this case it would be advisable to open a regional shopping center, Shuvalov believes. It can be integrated into the stylobate part of the LCD. An example of such integration is the Letniy Sad shopping and entertainment center as part of the residential complex of the same name. The shopping center consists of three levels, its area is 21,000 square meters.
“The stylobate is a hybrid between a street and a separate building. Stylobates have a common foundation with a residential building; they can combine several towers or go beyond other buildings with facades. Such placement allows to make a certain autonomy into a retail space, for example, separate ventilation or convenient loading. Also, with the help of a stylobate, it is possible to increase the efficiency of using the site - the stylobate takes up less space than a separate building, ”explains Kolokolnikov.
If the residential complex is located far from the traffic flow (and there are a majority of such projects), then it will not be economically justified to implement a shopping center in the project, says Shuvalov. “We usually refuse this approach, although architects often insist on it,” Kozlova agrees. - The second and third floors are poorly in demand for renting out, if they are not formed into a high-quality shopping center, oriented to a greater extent to "outside" traffic. In addition, the costs of maintaining and operating the shopping center are very high.”
If we compare a district shopping center with street retail, it should be understood that if it is implemented in a two- or three-story version, it will be necessary to attract anchor tenants to create a flow, Shuvalov warns. These can be operators in the segments "goods for children", "goods for the house", "household appliances", "children's entertainment". Ideally, if the shopping center has a full-fledged food court. All listed operators occupy an average area of 800-1200 square meters. Like all anchor operators, they have a lower rental rate compared to street retailers. Previously, a cinema was also considered as part of the “anchors”, but now this decision is irrelevant, Shuvalov emphasizes.
According to him, residential complex concepts with district shopping centers are most often found in the Moscow region and in the regions, their rented area varies from 8 to 20 thousand square meters. The higher the area of the shopping center, the more emphasis is placed on the entertainment component, to which a food court can be added.
In a separate building, those operators who turned out to be difficult to “fit” into a residential building are most often taken out, adds Kolokolnikov. For example, this is a fitness center with a swimming pool, a medical clinic, etc.