GSE deploys no net land take development solutions to bring brownfield sites back to life
The number of the day is 10,000!
More than 10,000 brownfield sites are listed in France, find out how GSE reconverts polluted or brownfield sites into new factories, warehouses and offices.
Coming into force in 2021, the Climate and Resilience Law aims to reduce the consumption of natural and agricultural land via the goal of no net land take or in French, “Zero Artificialization Net (ZAN)”. This requirement could put the brakes on the construction of certain major projects, which are essential to ensure the economic vitality of our regions. To keep building while preserving natural terrains, there is a solution that seems to offer many advantages: brownfield re-development. Whether through renovation or demolition-build operations, this solution, along with other optimization solutions, could meet the growing need for logistics warehouses, particularly in areas with little new land available. With their wealth of experience and knowledge, GSE’s teams have become true experts in this field.
With the entry into force of the Resilience and Climate Law in 2021, the ZAN has made its appearance. Its aim: to progressively reduce the net land take to “neutrality” by 2050. A necessity in today’s context, where excessive consumption of natural and agricultural land threatens biodiversity, contributes to climate change and weakens ecosystems. Having long favored urban sprawl, France has decided to adopt a sober approach to the consumption of natural land. So, while pursuing the goal of protecting and preserving biodiversity, France intends to pursue its real estate development in order to ensure, in particular, the production of renewable energies and the country’s reindustrialization. These seemingly contradictory objectives have led to the blocking of many construction projects, particularly those of economic importance.
Despite this, there are a number of ways of meeting all these objectives at once, and two in particular stand out: vertical construction and brownfield redevelopment.
Rehabilitation of brownfield sites, yes, but not only
With this in mind, GSE, a general contractor for commercial real estate, has chosen to draw on all its skills to offer comprehensive solutions for the rehabilitation of brownfield sites, enabling us to present projects that not only comply with the ZAN law, but also respond to the uniqueness of each project: terrain, location, objectives, etc. It’s worth noting that brownfield sites represent a significant proportion of the world’s land area. It has to be said that brownfield sites offer enormous potential for the redevelopment of urban areas. Rehabilitating them not only limits urban sprawl, but also revitalizes neighborhoods that are often neglected. This is fully in line with the objectives of the ZAN law, which seeks to reconcile urban development with environmental protection.
“We’re ahead of the game at GSE, having made limited the use of new land one of our priorities for several years now,” says Roland Paul, Chairman of GSE. “Our teams have acquired invaluable expertise in this area over the course of many rehabilitation projects.”
GSE’s expertise in a wide range of redevelopment projects
Numerous examples of brownfield redevelopment illustrate the potential of this approach. In Bessé-sur-Braye (72), for example, GSE rehabilitated more than 8,000 m2 of industrial buildings, retaining 50% of the existing structure and adding new custom-built buildings. By reusing the existing structure, GSE was able to optimize land use and reuse platforms and materials.
Other examples: for projects at La Verrière (78) and Garonor (93), GSE first deconstructed the old buildings and purged the foundations to make the hospital site suitable for new construction. In Hamburg, faced with the scarcity of land in Germany, GSE and its partners made the dual choice of rehabilitating a former industrial wasteland and using multi-storey construction, an ideal tool for optimizing constructable surfaces.
This has given life to projects on land whose price has varied little in recent years, driven by the assets of the wasteland, such as its location and accessibility, and whose planning permissions are mostly accepted, thanks to the determination of elected representatives to maintain a certain sobriety with regard to land use.
“CEREMA1 lists more than 10,000 unconverted wastelands, but there are a large number of unlisted wastelands,” reveals GSE wastelands expert Amiel BOULLEMANT. “Above all, the market for brownfield sites is alive and kicking, with factories opening and closing every day. If we focus on the logistics, industrial and service sectors, there are at least over 2,000 brownfield sites.”
A multi-level approach to optimize the potential of each project
As Amiel BOULLEMANT points out, “converting brownfield sites is not the only solution. Vertical construction is also a solution, with the design of multi-level buildings”.
Faced with this challenge, GSE has been focusing on multi-level construction for many years, taking the lead in the French market. GSE’s vertical construction offer reduces the building’s footprint, and is also virtuous, thanks to the creation of green spaces, the use of photovoltaic panels and the use of low-carbon concrete. GSE’s experience also means that, in some cases, we can choose to rebuild a brownfield site rather than rehabilitate it, in the case of old buildings where the clean-up processes are often very costly and inefficient.
Each multi-level building has at least one floor, accompanied by a truck area and often an access ramp. All the technical complexity of a multi-storey structure derives from this configuration. The construction of a multi-Level building requires efficient synchronization between the circulation of people, the routing of goods, their transport, storage space and the nature of the items.
Since 2019, the latest generation of multi-storey warehouses has made its appearance in France. For example, the 63,000 m² Paris Air2 logistics platform, built by GSE in the heart of the Port of Gennevilliers, enables goods to be stored and shipped by river to the Port of Bercy. Last-mile deliveries to customers in and around Paris are made by river freight.
There are also multi-storey platforms integrating a user-specific automated process. The 4-storey logistics building at Augny near Metz was built for a world leader in e-commerce. From design to process integration management, the teams adapted the building to the customer’s process. The number of parcels shipped per day can reach 550,000. Flow management had to be simulated right from the start of the project.
Germany’s first two-storey multi-level building, the Mach 2 project for Four Parx was built in Hamburg. With a surface area of 123,000 m², it represented a major design and construction challenge. The project involved the rehabilitation of a brownfield site, with site remediation carried out by our experts, and special features such as a parking lot for light vehicles under the truck yard.
[1] Center for Studies and Expertise on Risks, the Environment, Mobility and Land Use ( Center for Studies and Expertise on Risks, the Environment, Mobility and Land Use)