If you live in an urban or metropolitan area, you’ve likely noticed more luxury apartments popping up atop new storefronts, restaurants, and other non-residential spaces. These buildings are known as mixed-use developments, with some people referring to the residential portions of these developments as mixed-use apartment buildings. If you’re wondering why mixed-use apartment buildings are booming, what advantages you might enjoy if you move into a mixed-use apartment building, and what else you can find within a mixed-use development, read on to learn a bit about these exciting new spaces.
What exactly is a mixed-use development?
A mixed-use development is any space that combines residential space with retail space, such as restaurants and storefronts. Such a development may comprise several individual mixed-use apartment buildings, each of which might have, for example, a ground floor with restaurants, stores, and offices and additional floors of luxury apartments. Other developments may comprise just one mixed-use apartment building, and yet other developments may be massive high-rises nearly 50 stories high.
What can be found in a mixed-use development?
Mixed-use developments sometimes include more than restaurants, storefronts, and offices. Some may combine luxury apartments with high-end hotels and corporate suites. Others may include public gathering spaces and cafes that any passersby, in addition to tenants, can enjoy. Mixed-use developments near or on college campuses – where they are sometimes built to combine high-end student housing with access to shops and restaurants that might otherwise lie far off-campus – may contain university space such as lecture halls as well.
What can be found in a mixed-use apartment building?
Of course, a mixed-use apartment building will provide residents with easy access to the stores, restaurants, offices, and other spaces located on its premises. Beyond this access, though, the vast majority of mixed-use apartment buildings also contain amenities common in luxury apartment buildings. These amenities may include firepits, rooftop access, spas, fitness centers, media lounges, and theaters. In some cases, residents of mixed-use apartment buildings can enjoy discounts at the restaurants and shops contained within the development.
Why are mixed-use developments booming?
There are many reasons why mixed-use developments are booming. Below are just the most prominent few:
Investor money
A large number of investors have realized the money-earning potential of mixed-use developments. In 2017, for example, the amount spent on building mixed-use developments totaled $1.06 trillion. Investors are acutely aware that people who move into mixed-use apartments might be more likely to rent office space, shop at stores, and eat at restaurants on-site – and with every dollar spent there, investors earn back more money on what they’ve already put down.
Millennial demand
Millennials looking to buy apartments in metropolitan areas have driven the demand for luxury apartments, in turn driving the construction of mixed-use developments. This demographic wants to be close to things to do with easy access to transportation to work. Stores, restaurants, and brands targeting millennial customers often rent spaces in these developments to achieve greater exposure to not just residents, but any people walking by on the street.
Walkable communities
Americans have grown to prefer walkable communities, meaning that people are less interested in car ownership and more interested in quick, easy access to amenities, stores, restaurants, and office spaces. Mixed-use developments, of course, meet this demand perfectly.
Would you live in a mixed-use apartment building? Why or why not? Sound off in the comments!
