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Economy & Digital

Retail and center concept 2023

The city of Wolfsburg and the economic development department of Wolfsburg Wirtschaft und Marketing GmbH (WMG) aim to achieve orderly and sustainable retail development in the city.

The retail and center concept was updated together with the Stadt Handel office and adapted to changes in settlement and retail structures as well as new legal framework conditions so that inquiries from investors and operators can be answered on the basis of a well-founded and up-to-date assessment. It was adopted by the city council in June 2023, including a binding Wolfsburg product range list as a recommendation for action.

The basis for updating the concept is a comprehensive market and location analysis. As part of the analysis, both the supply and demand situation as well as the urban development structures were comprehensively examined and a local supply and special location analysis was carried out. Based on this, overarching guidelines for the retail development of the city of Wolfsburg were defined and retail-related, city-wide development potential was identified.

To this end, a complete survey of the retail stock in Wolfsburg was carried out in summer 2021, including the respective sales area and the product ranges on offer. Furthermore, a customer origin survey was carried out in retail businesses in order to gather information on catchment areas, shopping and competitive links in the retail location of Wolfsburg. As part of an online survey on shopping behavior in Wolfsburg's city center, valuable information was also obtained both for the updating of the retail and center concept itself and for the city center development concept.

Building on the analysis of Wolfsburg as a retail location, the existing conceptual components, such as the "Wolfsburg List" product range list and the central service areas, were reviewed in terms of their functionality and spatial dimensioning as part of the update. All retail and local supply areas were also classified according to their respective function in the center model with its various location categories. Corresponding development objectives and settlement guidelines were drawn up for the central service areas, the local supply locations and the other retail locations.

Due to the fact that the interests of the retail sector were affected in many ways, the stakeholders relevant to the city center and retail sector were actively involved in the update process in the form of a project-accompanying working group (including representatives of the retail sector, the Chamber of Industry and Commerce, the Retail Association, the Greater Braunschweig Regional Association and the chairmen of the Strategy Committee and the Planning and Building Committee). During the process, both the WMG's Economic Committee and the Strategy Committee were also kept informed of the progress of the project. All local councils affected by the content of the update were also informed and involved.

Retail-related settlement and structural policy in the Wolfsburg urban area is managed and implemented by WMG.

  • Key retail figures

    Wolfsburg is home to 646 retail businesses (as of August 2021) with a sales area of 312,200 m². The retail-relevant purchasing power of the city of Wolfsburg is EUR 926.6 million. This contrasts with the turnover of EUR 1057.8 million generated in Wolfsburg. This represents a significant inflow of purchasing power, so that the centrality rate reaches a value of around 114 %.

  • Center, local supply and special location concept

    A total of eleven central supply areas were defined in Wolfsburg. In addition to the city center as the main center and Fallersleben and Vorfelde as district centers, eight local supply centers have been designated. In addition, the prospective district center Hehlinger Straße is designated against the backdrop of the development of five new neighborhoods with around 3,000 residential units (Sonnenkamp) to the east and north of the location area.

    Compared to the 2015/2016 retail and center concept, the division into main and supplementary locations was continued in the city centre and a spatial focus was placed on Porschestraße in the northern city centre. As a result, future large-scale retail developments are to be increasingly concentrated on Porschestrasse. For the Fallersleben district center, the central supply area was adjusted with the aim of securing and strengthening Westerstrasse and Bahnhofstrasse. The area of the craftsmen's quarter around Schachtweg, on the other hand, no longer adequately meets the legal requirements for a local supply center. The separate designation of the craftsmen's quarter and corresponding location-specific recommendations are intended to strengthen and further develop the character of the area.

    As part of the local supply concept, existing "local supply locations" that are currently being implemented have been designated as additional locations throughout the city. At these development sites, compatible (further) development in the form of a market-oriented expansion or the establishment of supplementary small-scale supply structures (e.g. bakeries, butchers) can be made possible. The designation was based on criteria. Possible further food retail projects outside the central service areas are to be examined on the basis of these criteria.

    Two special and specialist store agglomerations were defined as other location areas and corresponding recommendations for non-centre-relevant retail were made as part of the special location concept.

  • Wolfsburg product range list

    In order to fine-tune retail trade projects, it is necessary to define the product ranges to be assessed in Wolfsburg as centre-relevant as well as centre- and local supply-relevant in the form of a product range list. As a result of the legal requirements, the methodical derivation and on the basis of the current urban planning location of the sales areas, the urban planning objectives presented and the product range list from the retail concept for the city of Wolfsburg from 2016, the following adjustments have been made: Firstly, the renaming and grouping of various product ranges to improve manageability as well as a differentiation of product ranges. Secondly, in line with the development of local supply and local supply centers, paper/office supplies/stationery, pharmaceuticals (pharmacy), (cut) flowers and newspapers/magazines were added to the local supply-relevant product ranges.

  • Control principles

    In order to operationalize the overarching development goals of the retail and center concept, five guiding principles were developed for all location categories and product groups. The guiding principles represent a set of rules that prepare transparent, comprehensible permissibility decisions and land-use planning considerations, but also enable an initial rapid assessment for future site inquiries for retail uses/retail projects. They also ensure the necessary flexibility with regard to any individual decisions that may be required in the future. They serve to secure and further develop the location structure of the retail trade, particularly in favor of a profitable development for the city as a whole.

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