October 22nd saw two top-notch congresses for the real estate and retail industry in Vienna. The first being the third installation of the International Real Estate Investment Congress at the Palais Berg, an event that has already grown to a remarkable network meeting for the real estate industry.
After an inspiring keynote from consultant and author Andreas Salcher, the high-profile panel discussions started. Professor Hans Georg Lüber, security expert from the George C. Marshal Center, and Kai C. Andrejewski discussed the impacts of geopolitical crisis on the real estate market, followed by a panel on the topic of real estate investment strategies in challenging times.
Success, a matter of identity
It was then that the congress deep-dived into the retail business. ACROSS media publisher Reinhard Winiwarter discussed the polarization of the retail business, with a prosperous luxury segment on the one hand and a fast-growing discount business on the other. This raised the question of whether the middle segment is being crushed between these two poles.
Mario Schwann, general manager of the McArthurGlenn Designer Outlet Parndorf, argued that the Parndorf outlet has no plans to introduce discount brands and will instead increase its focus on luxury brands. Oleg Krüger, senior director expansion, construction, and procurement of Takko Fashion, on the other hand, sees a great window of opportunity for the discount fashion label. Takko Fashion is planning to open about 300 new stores in the next three years, most of them in Germany, Austria, and the BeNeLux.
It was then that Martin Berghofer, senior manager and head of BBE consulting in Austria, brought the threads together and concluded that the middle sector is, although under rising pressure from both sides, not in real danger. “It’s not the middle, but the mediocrity that’s dying,” was Berghofer’s conclusion. Companies need to have a clear and stringent position, a strict brand position and an image that is well understood by the customers. “If they achieve this, they will be able to thrive in whichever segment, be it in the luxury, the middle, or the discount sector,” Bergmann said.
Shopping Places are re-inventing themselves
In the afternoon, leaders from the shopping place industry congregated at the TU Vienna for the ASCP congress 2025 installed by the Austrian Council of Shopping Places, headed by chairman Christoph Andexlinger, also CEO of Spar European Shopping Centers (SES).
The congress clearly highlighted that new ideas are needed to keep people attracted to visit shopping places of all sizes. In particular, shopping places and malls need to be developed into multifunctional sites that also offer entertainment, health- or municipial services for the customers. Besides being shopping destinations which offer a wide range of brands and stores, a distinctive food and beverage offer, entertainment and a unique leisure offer is needed to attract customers. Best practice examples of how to achieve this were presented.
The 15-minute-city
The closing speech of the day was held by Professor Carlos Moreno, city-planner and scientific director of the Sorbonne University in Paris. Moreno, the author of the book “The 15-minute city. A solution to saving our time and our planet”, noted that it is one of the basic purposes of a city to offer shopping places and shopping sites. And that these sites need to be decentralized in the districts of the cities, offering their inhabitants and visitors lively and traffic-calmed areas and meeting zones that can be reached within 15 minutes by everybody without the use of a car or an other motorized vehicle.
In the following panel discussion with Clemens Horak, head of Vienna’s MA18 for urban development and planning, and again ACROSS’s Reinhard Winiwarter, Moreno extrapolated his ideas even further and explained that an urbanization focussing on huge shopping sites at the outskirts of cities, which can only be reached by car, is misleading.
The inspiring day for the participants of the two congresses ended with get-togethers at both sites and chances to discuss ideas even further.
