r/Glasgow Tools

Title
Author	Scunnered20
Comment	I think the pace of change in the last few years has caught many landowners, even those large-scale hedge-fund retail property managers, by surprise. 10 years ago, or maybe even as recently as 5 or 6, keeping places like the St Enoch Centre on life support by sinking money into medium-scale renovations or bowling alleys or cinemas or different entertainment offerings, might've seemed worth it. Throw some money at it and see how much longer your investment can continue making you a return. Cities are changing at such a rapid pace though, as are the economics of retail. The pandemic fired rocket boosters onto online retail. At the same time, worldwide since 2010ish, we've been living through a period of massive scale re-urbanisation, with cities drawing growing populations in a way not seen since the industrial revolution. The growth isn't uniform of course, but Glasgow is seeing a huge growth in inward population growth towards its urban core for the first time in decades. All this together suddenly means simply that the pendulum has moved, and there's now much, much more money to be made long term and impetus to invest in rented residential properties in city centres, rather than rented retail space. It just so happens that this aligns with a lot of wider ambitions Glasgow and other cities have: about making their urban cores more people-friendly, hospitable, walkable, liveable, etc. But the drive is very much market economics.
Reddit Link	https://www.reddit.com/r/glasgow/comments/13vwctf/plans_approved_for_demolition_of_glasgows_st/jm9iorq/
Created	Tue 30th May 2023 11:39pm
Status	normal ()

I think the pace of change in the last few years has caught many landowners, even those large-scale hedge-fund retail property managers, by surprise.

10 years ago, or maybe even as recently as 5 or 6, keeping places like the St Enoch Centre on life support by sinking money into medium-scale renovations or bowling alleys or cinemas or different entertainment offerings, might've seemed worth it. Throw some money at it and see how much longer your investment can continue making you a return.

Cities are changing at such a rapid pace though, as are the economics of retail. The pandemic fired rocket boosters onto online retail. At the same time, worldwide since 2010ish, we've been living through a period of massive scale re-urbanisation, with cities drawing growing populations in a way not seen since the industrial revolution. The growth isn't uniform of course, but Glasgow is seeing a huge growth in inward population growth towards its urban core for the first time in decades.

All this together suddenly means simply that the pendulum has moved, and there's now much, much more money to be made long term and impetus to invest in rented residential properties in city centres, rather than rented retail space.

It just so happens that this aligns with a lot of wider ambitions Glasgow and other cities have: about making their urban cores more people-friendly, hospitable, walkable, liveable, etc. But the drive is very much market economics.