15-minute-city ideas add value to residential neighbourhoods

The Copenhagen-based residential-focused developer Alfa Development utilises ideas drawn from Paris’s 15-minute city concept when integrating commercial space into communities in order to ensure that it adds value to a neighbourhood.

At one project, the Irmabyen Community at Rødovre, Alfa operates a restaurant and takeaway.

“We think it adds so much value to the neighborhood that it’s worth it for us to get it started, to set a certain standard and to attract the right customer” said the company’s co founder and group CEO Andreea Kaiser.

 “We have a very holistic and focused approach to mid-income real estate development,” Kaiser added.

“We try to cover all areas of the mid-income market and have a great focus on the customer: For every development we really try to understand who is our customer and how we can fulfil their needs in all areas,” she said in conversation with Real Asset Insight’s Richard Betts during the recent ULI European Conference.

Alfa is mainly focused on build-to-rent, sometimes for its own portfolio and at others for pension funds. “We also do shared living and of course some affordable living when that’s required by the councils.”

“We have also moved heavily into shared spaces – we have a clubhouse concept where we build smaller units and we take some of the facilities into a shared-living concept.”