When “industrial hotels” come to the city
For several years now, production activities have been returning to cities. Between 2016 and 2019, 60% of industrial jobs created were in metropolitan areas and their surrounding suburbs. By offering suitable space, “industrial hotels” help retain industrial and productive activities in dense urban environments. In Paris and Lyon, two cities where real estate and land constraints are numerous, the concept is flourishing, helping prevent activities from moving to far-flung outskirts. But will it be enough?
Over the decades, industries have gradually been driven out of our cities. There are many reasons for this departure: viewed as polluting and as sources of nuisance, they have suffered greatly from competition for access to land with other uses, such as housing and offices. As a result, most factories were pushed out of cities. The construction of railways in the suburbs initially, followed by the widespread adoption of cars, made it possible for industries to free themselves from their immediate proximity to the city by facilitating employee mobility.
Keeping activity in the city
In Paris, the decline of industrial activity within the city can be observed as early as the 1980s. “Sectors such as mechanical engineering, textiles and printing saw the number of their establishments and jobs dwindle. Furniture crafts and arts and crafts followed the same trend. Excessive land consumption, isolation, car dependency, not to mention the homogenization of the city: the flight of industry to the outskirts nevertheless creates problems. Problems that some local authorities are trying to solve. In this context, the City of Paris initiated a policy to retain certain non-polluting production activities, creating dedicated premises known as business hotels,” noted the Atelier Parisien d’Urbanisme in a 2014 report on the supply of business premises in the capital. These “business hotels” provide small rental spaces, primarily intended for companies operating in production or service sectors. This solution is aimed at start-ups or expanding companies, particularly where the private real estate rental market is limited or does not meet their needs. Some 30 of them were created in Paris between 1980 and 2000.
However, the origins of this type of project date back to the early 20th century. It then took off thanks to the growing use of reinforced concrete and steel structures, which made it easier to handle heavy loads. Notable examples include the Contrescarpe factory on Boulevard de la Bastille, as well as several buildings on Rue de Charonne. Decades later, “Mozinor” was built in Montreuil amid the deindustrialization of Paris and opened in the early 1960s: 42,000 sq. m. over four floors, with the aim of creating 10,000 jobs. An unconventional project for its time, it remains remarkably relevant in today’s context, echoing contemporary challenges such as preserving urban productive activities, adopting vertical structures to limit encroachment on natural spaces, sharing resources and equipment, improving quality of life, and the ability to adapt and transform over time. Also worth noting is the Berlier industrial hotel, in the Bruneseau district on the edge of the ring road, which established the genre’s credentials; its architect Dominique Perrault received a Gold Square award for the project in 1990.
In the 21st century, “Régie immobilière de la ville de Paris (RIVP) joined this movement at the very beginning of the 2010s, at the instigation of the City of Paris. The city had granted the operation of numerous commercial properties to disparate players through emphyteutic leases—that is, very long-term leases. The idea was then to streamline the city’s support for businesses by entrusting management of these commercial spaces to a single player. As a semi-public company, RIVP was the obvious choice,” recalls Christophe Gerbenne, Director of Development and Real Estate Management for Businesses at the agency. Today, RIVP manages around 20 industrial hotels.
From office buildings to industrial hotels
At the time, the local authority’s priority was to help young companies and start-ups find suitable premises in the capital so that they would not leave for other places. However, the challenge quickly became one of providing hybrid space: both production facilities and offices. These are industrial hotels, whose purpose is to prevent industry from leaving and support the transformation of the creative economy, which increasingly needs production and logistics facilities to develop new products. Designed as a springboard for young companies and rapidly expanding businesses, these one-of-a-kind spaces offer far more than a simple workplace. At the crossroads between a business incubator and a business center, the industrial hotel provides flexible rental space tailored to the specific needs of manufacturing and service industries.
At the heart of areas where the conventional real estate market struggles to meet businesses’ specific requirements, these innovative facilities fill a gap. “Office buildings are not suitable for industrial production. Their floor load capacity is often too low, and they are not equipped to accommodate heavy logistics,” Christophe Gerbenne continues. At an industrial hotel at 56–62 Boulevard Davout in Paris’s 20th arrondissement, the real estate agency was able to accommodate a brewer seeking to produce beer locally in 2023. The producer needed a floor load capacity of 1.5 metric tons, storage capacity and unloading bays. The Hôtel Industriel de l’Ourcq in Pantin (1989), designed by Paul Chemetov and Huidobro Borja, had “interior streets” and housed heavy industry on the ground floor, while ramps enabled vehicles to access light industries above.
Industrial hotels serving the social and solidarity economy
Paris is not the only metropolitan area concerned with bringing productive and industrial activity back into the city. In Vénissieux, the Lyon metropolitan area offers premises tailored to young companies focused on high tech as well as the social and solidarity economy (SSE), on a former industrial brownfield site. The site hosts both Symbio, a company developing fuel cells, and Les Alchimistes, an SSE company that produces compost from food waste. “That is the advantage of being a semi-public company, like RIVP. It provides long-term security for tenants. We will not resell these buildings, and we can support tenant companies in the event of cash-flow difficulties, for example,” Christophe Gerbenne explains. And this is only the beginning. RIVP renovated the Serpollet industrial hotel in Paris’s Python-Duvernois development zone in 2023. The site is now dedicated to activities related to food and food-waste recovery. This year, it is also expected to cross the ring road and open several industrial hotels in inner-suburban municipalities, including Ivry-sur-Seine, Pantin and Saint-Denis, which have also been won over by the industrial hotel model.
