Commercial space development

With the update of the "Job and commercial space development concept for the city of Jena" from 2012, the long-term goals for the city up to the year 2035 were developed, coordinated and set out in a transparent process. Since then, this informal planning has been used to review the effectiveness of the objectives and development and implementation recommendations set out in the concept. The concept also serves as an essential technical basis for updating the land use plan.

Prognos AG and Complan Kommunalberatung GmbH were commissioned by the City of Jena to update the concept. Both companies were already responsible for the development of the original concept.

Starting with the update, a project-accompanying steering committeewas set up in 2019 consisting of representatives from the administration, politics, chambers and associations as well as Jena companies, who were thus able to contribute their specialist input to the development of the workplace and commercial space development concept with the new time horizon up to 2035.

Commercial and scientific sites in Jena - status quo

The most important results of the analysis of the commercial and scientific space situation (SO F+L) include the following points:

• The city of Jena has 348 ha of commercial space. Almost 80 % (277 ha) of this is used for commercial purposes and is considered developed land.
• Undeveloped areas currently account for around one fifth of the land (71 ha). Only around one tenth (7.6 ha) of the undeveloped land is currently available for marketing due to the lack of planning law, land that has already been sold or optioned or due to the ownership situation. Of this, 1.7 ha is the last, but also the largest contiguous building site owned by the city.
• Demand for land is particularly high in the Jena South and Jena Autobahn areas. These areas account for a total of 34 hectares of demand or 72% of all land take-up since 2010.
• In the case of special development areas for research and teaching, the amount of space used (around 92 ha) has hardly changed in recent years, although changes and adjustments have been made within the existing stock.
• The concentration and redesign of university sites that has begun will continue in the coming years. With the Inselplatz as a new building site and the three existing quarters Landgrafenareal, Bachstraße and the former children's hospital, there are potential areas and reuse options for future use. With the concentration on fewer university locations, further scattered and individual locations are to be abandoned in accordance with the plans of the Free State of Thuringia.

A company survey conducted by the Gesellschaft für angewandte Kommunalforschung mbH (GEFAK) in 2019 was used to assess the space requirements of Jena's companies. Around 450 companies were asked about their needs, challenges and assessments of Jena as a business location. With 97 responses, the response rate was around 22%.

In general, the companies surveyed were satisfied with the location conditions in Jena. Similar to the results of the company survey from 2012, the greatest importance was attached to good broadband and mobile phone connections as well as the availability of workers. The 2019 study on skilled workers confirms the great importance of skilled workers for the future development of Jena as a business location. The greatest discrepancies between importance and satisfaction are also evident in the availability of skilled workers and housing, followed by the availability and price level of commercial space and real estate.

Almost three quarters of companies are focusing on growth and increasing the number of employees. Just under half of all companies surveyed are planning to expand or relocate in the next three years. The majority of these companies would like to remain loyal to the city of Jena (60%) or at least the region (23%).

After the availability of workers, the availability of space is cited as the greatest challenge to implementing potential company expansions or relocations. In total, around a third of companies indicated a need for additional commercial space.

The greatest demand is for office space. Their total stock grew by 7.5 % between 2015 and 2020, while the vacancy rate fell from 3.8 % to 2.0 %.

Based on the current commercial space situation, the employment forecast and the determination of location-specific space indicators, the demand for commercial space up to 2035 was forecast. A total of four scenarioswere calculatedusing an economic equilibrium model in which the supply of and demand for space correspond in the base year, taking into account productivity and reserve areas. This methodology was already used in 2012 for the commercial space forecast. In retrospect, this approach showed an error tolerance of less than 2 % for 2020. For this reason, this approach will be used again for the update.

What all four scenarios have in common is that two variants A (without Rothenstein) and B (with Rothenstein) were considered for each of them. This made it possible to take into account the future development of the Rothenstein intermunicipal commercial area owned by a municipal company - in accordance with the special-purpose agreement between Rothenstein and Jena from 2019 - in the demand calculations.

In consultation with the project steering committee, Scenario 2was selected as the base scenario and Scenario 4 as the target scenario. At 5 %, both scenarios take into account a larger proportion of reserve space (fluctuation reserve) than scenarios 1 and 3 and thus enable the city of Jena to react more flexibly to specific company requirements, e.g. in the event of company relocations. However, the chosen approach implies that additional areas of up to 16 hectares must be taken into account in the balance sheet.

As a result of the calculations, demand in the base scenario exceeds supply by 5 hectares in 2030. In 2035, the ratio is then roughly balanced. The reason for this development is the aforementioned decline in the number of people in employment as a result of demographic change. In the target scenario, demand already exceeds the available land supply by around 8 hectares in 2025. In the following years, the shortfall in space then gradually increases and reaches around 26 hectares in 2035. Due to the faster growth of the land use ratios (faster automation and thus increased land consumption), no decrease is to be seen here between 2030 and 2035.

The concept makes the following recommendationsfor the future development of commercial and scientific areas:

• The need for space must be securedprimarily by maintaining and safeguarding existing commercial areas, including areas that are currently unavailable and special construction areas for research and teaching. This includes swiftly creating planning law for the areas already earmarked to enable commercial use. Urban land-use planning must be initiated for the Isserstedt 1 and Östlich der Landesärztekammer areas subject to land-use planning.
• Existing areas in need of reorganization and restructuring should be analysed in depth and efforts should be made to densify and optimize the areas. These include the Löbstedt-Ost industrial estate, the Unteraue industrial estate, the Am Reifsteine site and the Göschwitz industrial estate.
• Land potential can be mobilizedthrough the revitalization of commercial sites that are currently or will no longer be used. This applies to the TEAG sites and the current headquarters of Carl Zeiss AG in Building 6/70 (after relocation).
• Furthermore, additional commercial areas of up to 8 hectares can be newly designated in the future FNP . Once they have been mobilized, these can be used to supplement the existing commercial stock in certain areas. These include the Saalepark III, Burgau extension and Göschwitz railroad areas (after release by Deutsche Bahn AG).
• In addition, there is the development of the inter-municipal commercial area together with the municipality of Rothenstein and more in-depth inter-municipal cooperation with neighboring municipalities and districts.
• In view of the land reserves at the university locations and the concentration processes that have been initiated, as well as the existing potential areas for science settlements ("Im Hahnengrunde" and the Seidelstrasse expansion area) that have been secured under planning law, no need for additional special building areas can be derivedwithout specific settlement inquiries . The existing areas are therefore sufficient from a current perspective. Should further areas be required, it is also possible to locate research facilities on commercial or mixed development sites or in core areas. A flexibility reserve has been provided for this purpose, i.e. a combination of sites where a flexible mix of commercial and scientific uses is possible (TEAG site, Bau 6/70 and An der Saalbahn).