In the city center of Almere commercial space will almost double compared to previous plans. Originally 66,287 sq.m. were planned, but in the revised plans a total of 102,581 sq.m. will be developed. Of this extra floor space almost 11,000 sq.m. are reserved for shops.
The regular monitor by PriceWaterhouseCoopers concludes that there are hardly any risks involved in the increase in commercial square meters. Per thousand inhabitants Almere has some 1,042 sq.m. of retail space availible, which is substantially lower than comparable cities, which have 1,381 sq.m. availible.
In the original City Center Masterplan several projects were not yet included, such as a hotel and the city center information center. The number of seats of both the theater and cinema complex have been increased. An additional 4,000 sq.m. is availible to innovative entrepreneurs which will add quality to the city center.
Furthermore, potential tenants require more and more space for new and large shopping formulas. An extra layer of floor space will now become availible, which may also be used by the catering and hospitality trade. The number of houses being build here stands unchanged at 932 and it appears that no great changes will happen here.
As a result of these changes, the zoning plan will have to adapted and it is expected that an additional EUR 10 million in proceeds will be realized by selling more land.
(source: City of Almere)
