Liz Terry, CLADmag editor

Leisure is emerging as a powerful anchor for residential and retail developments, as well as adding significant bottom line value to a wide range of other development types.

In this issue of CLADmag we talk to Steve and Marie Nygren about Serenbe, their development near Atlanta, US (page 114). Serenbe is a growing community based around humanscale living, with leisure and lifestyle built in.

As they prepare to extend Serenbe with the addition of a new spa and wellness-focused development, the Nygrens report they’re achieving a premium of five to 10 times the typical sq ft value of real estate at Serenbe when compared with other property in the local market.

And this value-added effect extends into many other sectors. Talking to CLADmag recently, Paul Scialla, CEO of Delos Living, a company backed by Bill Clinton and Leonard DiCaprio, explained how his company’s Well Building Standard™ has led to the creation of Stay Well rooms for hotels with a range of wellness features such as air purification and electro-magnetic shielding built in.

Delos says the MGM Grand hotel in Las Vegas broke even in only six weeks on the cost of adding 17 Stay Well features to rooms as part of a pilot. As a result, the company has turned an entire floor over to bedrooms fitted out this way. Delos says MGM Grand’s Stay Well rooms command a 30 per cent room rate premium.

Elsewhere, retail owners are looking to leisure for solutions when they need to take up slack space created as a result of the shrinkage in retail caused by internet shopping. Existing retail areas are welcoming leisure, and new developments will be fully integrated with it to increase footfall and create more of an experience for shoppers.

Examples are BIG’s Europa City development just outside Paris (page 13) – the most advanced integrated leisure and retail scheme ever conceived, London’s Olympicopolis development (page 23) which looks likely to be the location for the first Smithsonian outside the US, and Park 21 (page 22) which would bring a vast leisure, retail and greenspace development to a location near Schiphol airport in the Netherlands. Others include Paradise Sega Sammy (page 12), a US$1.7bn resort development in South Korea – also integrated with an airport and designed by global practices including WATG and Hirsch Bedner.

Every leisure element is being deployed in these developments, from sport to spa, hotel to theme park and theatre to health club and across public and private sectors, giving a clear view of how the future success how the future success of all is becoming intertwined.

Liz Terry, Editor, CLAD @elizterry