"The city needs retail, and retail needs the city." And it is that proximity commerce revitalizes cities and neighborhoods, and plays a decisive role in their daily lives. For this reason, the commercial hubs of central Barcelona, grouped under Barcelona Oberta, are committed to collaborating with the administration to address transformations such as that of La Rambla and the future Sagrera. "We make ourselves available to administrations and other sectors to work to overcome obstacles and facilitate the projects we aspire to as a city," said the entity's president, Gabriel Jené.
Before professionals and experts from the sector who attended the Summit Barcelona Oberta, Jené defended that commerce is called to revitalize La Rambla so that it once again attracts Barcelonans, and asked to improve the connection of Via Laietana, recovering its access towards the center: "The reform of Via Laietana is an exemplary reform that has broken with the highway connection between the Eixample and the sea, but now we lack the sea-mountain connection," which harms the commercial hubs of the coast, according to Jené.
The president of the entity has claimed that the importance given to retail will be decisive in the transformation of environments such as Sagrera, Sagrada Família, the Tres Xemeneies of Sant Adrià and the expansion of the MNAC. He also believes it will be in the project to connect the tram along Diagonal: "We are not in favor, but we know it will end up being done, and we have to be part of the project and the solution."
Jené also claims that the entity must be part of the debate on the reform of Consell de Cent. After the ruling issued a year ago that the reform must be reversed as a result of an appeal filed by Barcelona Oberta itself, Jené has assured that there has been no approach on this matter with the City Council: "We demand to be able to advance in a dialogue that for now we have not been able to achieve. The ruling says that it must be reversed, and it would be very damaging for the city if finally there is no dialogue and the ruling has to be complied with as it is dictated."
Collaboration as a path
Experts in trade and retail from various fields have agreed on defending the importance of public-private collaboration. "It is very important for the private and public sectors to work together," remarked the CEO of L35 Arquitectes, Luisa Badia, who has directed projects such as La Maquinista. "We conceive it as an open space, with trees and benches, because we design routes, walks, thinking about how people can feel in these spaces," she explained in a round table within the Summit, held at Casa Seat.
This public-private collaboration "is necessary from a consensus point of view and also because private resources are required to drive changes with the necessary speed," stated Oriol Barrachina, CEO of Cushman & Wakefield in Spain. Barrachina advocated for sharing strategic visions to reinvent cities, without forgetting the narrative and communication. "Here we tend to shoot ourselves in the foot a bit," he said, referring to cases like 22@, which some question when, despite having aspects to improve, represents a "success story."
"It is a still unfinished success story," added the co-founder and CEO of Conren Tramway, Jaime-Enrique Hugas. According to him, work must continue on the mix of uses in the technological district, because "it is the way to give soul to the city". To do this, he called for changing administrative determinants and bureaucratic speeds across the city, in which he argues that every new building must include space for retail, especially in predominantly business and office areas.
The same reflection serves as the basis for London's New West End, which encompasses 600 retailers, restaurateurs, gallery owners, and hoteliers in this central area. "Our goal is to improve the business district," explained its CEO, Dee Corsi, who specified that they address the issue through data and information about clients and consumers, and by working together from a global vision of the commercial area.
This global vision is what is sought with urban economic promotion areas (Apeu). These are delimited zones where companies, developers, and the administration agree on the promotion and revitalization of the area based on an agreed plan, with an operation that may resemble that of a shopping center, where activity is distributed seeking a balance in the offer. The CEO of Fina García, Francesc Casanovas, has committed to promoting this type of coordination, even if it is not an easy task, as it depends on many actors and is bureaucratically complex: "It is in everyone's interest to achieve it to gain higher quality spaces."
The administration's retailer bet
The need to "put commerce at the center of the city's strategic planning" has also been highlighted by the Generalitat. The Director General of Commerce of the Department of Business and Labor, Marta Angerri, has advocated for "adopting an integral approach that gathers the vision of all agents" and all the elements that make up a city. According to the until September director of Ametller Origen, housing, infrastructure, mobility, businesses, and new work models are key to shaping the city, always with the improvement of citizens' quality of life as the objective.
The Generalitat and the City Council defend the importance of retail and commercial areasFrom the City Council, this issue is approached with the conviction that "commerce helps to boost the local economy, promotes activity, and contributes to social cohesion," as highlighted by the Councilor for Commerce, Restaurants, and Markets, Raquel Gil. The also Councilor for Economic Promotion has defended that "commercial areas must be flexible, accessible, and integrated into urban environments", in a city with a double dimension: local and international: "We are a global city and that leads us to have different levels of commerce and different stagings of the city."
Commerce in the urban ecosystem
As architecture academic Martha Thorne highlighted during the Summit, the role that commerce plays in the city is crucial and affects multiple areas. And it is that "the city is an ecosystem in which everything is interconnected," stressed the executive director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, known as the Nobel of architecture.
Thorne remarked that, within this ecosystem, everything also impacts retail, including population aging and climate change. According to her, cities must look towards these challenges and address them from all areas, including commercial: "If the city wins, retail wins; and if retail wins, the city wins."