It is one of “the largest urban planning projects currently being carried out in France”, underlines François Agache, general director of development at Apsys. For an investment of 500 million euros, the real estate developer is bringing the Canopia project to Bordeaux, the former “Rue Bordelaise”, which will take shape between the station and the platforms.
This “park street” 600 meters long and 20 meters wide, designed by the architectural firm Maison Edouard François, will lead at the quay level to the Méridien terraces building, which will house a leisure complex, open to a new wooded park, Descas Park, developed by the OIN (Operation of National Interest) Euratlantique.
In an interview with 20 minutesthe development director announces the launch of work on this program combining shops and housing, and the signing of a first brand, a Tribe brand hotel which will host a bar-restaurant on its roof terrace.
Where is the Canopia project?
The project is entering its concrete and operational phase, and will begin to be seen by Bordeaux residents. We are starting the very first work on the part of the existing building of which we have become the owner, the rest being in the process of being vacated. We begin with work to clean the plots, demolition and cleaning, a deconstruction phase which will last a few months. We will recover as many materials as possible to reuse them, particularly for dismantling/reassembling the most remarkable buildings, the aim being to preserve as many existing facades as possible. When this is not possible, we will still reuse the materials after crushing, via a partnership with the company Cycle Up. This will last until spring 2024, then we will continue with the construction work, which will last two years, with an opening still planned for mid-2026.
Have any brands already signed up to join the project?
We have a first signature for the hotel sector, with a new brand, Tribe, owned by the Accor group. It is a four-star with 144 rooms, very lifestyle and open to the outside. This will materialize in particular through the presence of a rooftop bar-restaurant, which will provide an exceptional view of Bordeaux and the Garonne. It will be a meeting point for hotel guests, local employees and residents.
The 66,000 m2 project provides for 45,000 m2 of retail space. Is this really necessary today in Bordeaux?
There is a real need for a new commercial polarity within the Euratlantic Operation of National Interest (OIN) which is developing around the station. Furthermore, the city of Bordeaux is highly commercially attractive, with a vacancy rate for its brands which is very low, around 3%. This means that due to a lack of suitable premises in city centers, there are few offers for sports, decoration and garden center brands located on the outskirts and seeking to develop as an urban concept. We will respond, with our premises, to this need. Besides this, we must understand that commerce is becoming more and more protean, that is to say that we still need to have traditional and local commerce, but we also know a strong development of catering and leisure, which is booming. Therefore, this project does not compete with existing businesses, but complements them.
Faced with economic uncertainty, particularly in real estate, is this project still viable?
We consider that the timing is right, and we have no doubt about the appeal of this project, which is always praised by the stakeholders we meet daily. We never doubted that it would be a success, even during the Covid crisis. In the aftermath of the pandemic, we quickly felt that there was a desire to return to physical commerce, and this was confirmed on our other commercial sites.
When it arrived at Bordeaux town hall, the new environmentalist majority took a dim view of this project, which it had even considered abandoning for a time before retracting. How are the discussions with the town hall going today?
The dialogue is very peaceful with the city of Bordeaux, but I will not hide from you that the day after the elections, we asked ourselves a lot of questions, and we were a little… disturbed. A period then opened where the new majority was able to learn about the project in detail, then we were able to adapt it to the request of the town hall.
We have thus extended the housing program by 50% compared to what was initially planned, to reach a total surface area of 6,200 m2, with 35% social housing. We have reduced the parking gauge from 1,000 to 750 spaces. The green part on the ground approaches 10,000 m2, to which we can add 9,000 m2 of green facades, and 3,450 m2 of green roofs. And we have integrated more than 2,000 m2 of projects around the social and solidarity economy (ESS), which is a new form of commerce. This inspired us, and in 2022 we won the restructuring of the headquarters of the AP-HP (Assistance publique-Hôpitaux de Paris) in Paris, a project in which we also integrated a part dedicated to the ESS. We thus discovered a world in full swing.