Since November last year, Dutch developers were involved in new and completed projects totalling almost 1.25 million m2 of new retail space in eleven different European countries. The portfolio of new development projects in planning or under construction has decreased slightly from 4.8 million m2 last year to 4.507 million m2 by 18 November this year in seventeen countries.

Besides Dutch based companies solely focused on the development of retail space, there are also some private Dutch investors and institutional listed real estate funds like Corio, Eurocommercial Properties and Unibail-Rodamco which are involved in redevelopments and new developments of European shopping centres. They have been excluded from the list, because their involvement is merely as external investors and they – in most of the cases - don’t take on the development risks of the project.

Compared to last year’s figures, Dutch developers of shopping centres and malls are still very active in Turkey. Their development activities across the border accounts for nearly a quarter of the total new retail space in Turkey. Last year they were involved in the development of a total of 1,154,100 m2. For this year, that total is 939,500 m2. Multi Development is responsible for most of those Turkish projects. Other countries where Dutch developers are also very active are: France (511,100 m2), Portugal (324,200 m2), Germany (338,500 m2), Belgium (342,200 m2), Italy (365,500 m2), Spain (344,000 m2), the Ukraine (323,500 m2) and the UK/Ireland (428,000 m2).

An interesting new feature in de cross-border activities of Dutch retail developing companies is the joint venture between Redevco and Shui On Land Ltd to develop a shopping centre in the Wuhan Tiandi Commercial Cluster (100,000 m2).

Vastgoedmarkt Research - Meta Kamps and Ruud de Wit