Legal & General : LGIM launches Future Place & Activation Team

Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM) announces a new cross-sector business function dedicated to making future ready, consumer centric places, seeking to realise long term sustainable asset value.

By developing transformative and innovative placemaking solutions for mixed-use real estate environments, the team will bolster LGIM's ability to deliver relevant and resilient assets - and as a result, seek to provide stable returns for its investors.

The Future Place & Activation strategy builds on LGIM Real Assets' Future Retail Blueprint, launched in 2021 across a collection of retail-centric projects, where curation and placemaking were at the heart of the asset design and management. Pilot schemes such as the Dolphin Centre and Kingland in Poole acted as a template for the high street of the future, resulting in 1,500+ independent local brands launching in the town centre, across market stalls and boutique shops. The Dolphin Centre has seen an +8.6% increase in footfall vs 2022, which was +8.9% ahead of the UK shopping centre average, +7.4% increase in spend vs 2022 and the total turnover for operators located on Kingland in 2023 was up +15.2% vs 2022¹. Dwell time has also increased by 3.3%[1]with the introduction of healthcare services, education facilities and Poole's first dedicated micro enterprise co-working space with multimedia labs, business support and business networking events.

Building on the success of the Future Retail pilots, the Future Place and Activation team will now play a central role within LGIM's broader real estate platform beyond solely retail - acting as the creative and strategic lead on all consumer facing products across its residential, retail, leisure, and workplace specialisms, across varying scales and geographies. LGIM will roll out this approach in upcoming projects, including the delivery of brand-new community centric neighbourhoods dedicated to independent businesses for our Build to Rent assets, to re-purposing flagship buildings, to continuing to future-proof retail, leisure, and workspace environments.

Led by Denz Ibrahim, Head of Futuring & Place, the team will be centred around the delivery of four key areas:

1. Placemaking - a Placemaking team focussed on solutions for re-purposing, re-positioning, and re-generation projects across our live, work, and play environments.
2. Data - a Data Intelligence Unit that delivers real time insights across our flagship real estate.
3. Operational Joint Venture's (JV's) - Supporting the growth of FOUNDRY and building on the operational JV initiative to uncover more like-minded partners and nurture the relationship between owner and occupier.
4. Future Retail & Workplace - Bringing together the future retail and workplace strategies to collectively respond to the ever-changing market, occupier insights, future trends, and cultural shifts.

Denz also sits on the board of FOUNDRY, co-founded by LGIM Real Assets and Adam Walker. It was launched in September 2022 to provide flexible, affordable, vibrant, mixed-use co-working venues dedicated to micro-enterprises across the UK. FOUNDRY has since launched three sites in Eastbourne, Poole and Walthamstow, with an average occupancy of 80% and repurposing over 40,000 square feet. In response to the strong demand for work, wellness and event spaces, four more locations and over 50,000 Square Feet are due to launch in the next year across retail, Built to Rent (BTR) assets and repurposed industrial spaces.