The owner of three Warsaw shopping centers recently announced plans to transform them into mixed-use districts. At the same time, the Fort Wola shopping center, which has been abandoned for several years, is undergoing a revival.
history of decline
photo by Adrian Grycuk / Wikimedia Commons
Fort Wola was abandoned in 2017. Since then, the shopping center in Warsaw's Wola has stood empty. The building was completed in 2001 and is an example of a typical commercial building of the period. Closed form, uninteresting architecture, spatial solutions favoring access by car and lack of spatial connections with the surrounding area. Not surprisingly, the mall lost the battle for customers to the newer facilities that sprang up like mushrooms in Warsaw in the 2000s. Along with the mall's closure, it was announced that it would be rebuilt and a new IKEA store would be opened there to attract customers to the uninteresting location. However, the planned 2018 inauguration never happened. Ownership issues stood in the way - the shopping center stands on land in perpetual usufruct, and is not owned by the developer. The surrounding land, which the developer also wanted to acquire for the center's expansion, belongs to the city and the state.
zombies
photo: Mayland - investor materials
Eventually, renovation of the center began in May 2021 after some of the ownership issues were settled. The impetus for the building's revival also included the closure of the nearby Tesco hypermarket, which raised the attractiveness of Fort Wola for such retail operators. It has just been announced that Kaufland will open a store at the site. The revived vacant building should resume operations in the fall of 2022.
Photo: Mayland - investor materials
While the reuse of this type of building may be welcome, the return to the same function remains debatable. A traffic-generating, cut-off shopping mall sealed off from the city to the neighborhood. This is quite the opposite approach to the one recently presented by the owner of several shopping malls in Warsaw under the Atrium banner. Thus, shopping malls like Fort Wola will sooner or later have to give way to more sustainable forms of commerce.
twilight of the malls
photo: Committee for Spatial Order of the Warsaw City Council (YouTube)
Atrium plans to demolish three large shopping centers in Warsaw. We're talking about Reduta, located on Jerozolimskie Avenue, Praga's Promenade and Targówek. In their place are to grow multifunctional districts designed successively by JEMS Architekci, BBGK and MAU. Large commercial hangars interspersed with parking lots are to be transformed into an urban fabric consisting of a system of public spaces, retail, residential and office buildings. The plans have been under discussion with the city authorities for several years, and were recently presented before the Warsaw City Planning Commission, at which time they saw the light of day. However, as the city authorities have announced, some of the investments will require updating planning documents. The question of the public infrastructure necessary for their implementation - schools, kindergartens, health centers or changes in public transportation - also remains open.
Under the green cloak
And although it seems that big-box retail of this type is passing into oblivion, rightly being the object of criticism from urban activists and the architectural community, sometimes skillfully conducted PR covers up the true intentions of investors. This is what happened in the case of the Towarowa 22 project. The quarter designed by BIG is in fact a giant (one of the largest in Warsaw) shopping center covered with a green roof and overhanging blocks of office buildings. These aesthetic additions and fashionable solutions have completely removed from the sight of journalists, city officials and activists the crux of the project and that is thousands of square meters of commercial space sucking the life out of the city.
