For occupiers and landowners
Commercial property planned around the business inside.
Customers have to find a commercial property and reach it, deliveries have to arrive without getting in their way, and the space has to suit how the business trades. We plan commercial real estate development from those needs outwards.
The business decides what the property must do
A car dealership, a building-materials supplier, a clinic and a café all need commercial space, and almost nothing else about their requirements is the same. The dealership needs a wide, visible frontage and a service workshop behind; the supplier needs yard space and heavy vehicle access; the clinic needs parking close to the door and discreet servicing; the café needs footfall. Commercial development that ignores those differences produces space that is easy to build and hard to let.
So we start with the occupier, real or intended. Where a business already knows what it needs, the property can be designed around it. Where the occupiers are not yet known, the plan is built around the kinds of business that location attracts, with enough flexibility to serve the next ones.
Commercial formats
Commercial properties
Standalone commercial buildings and mixed commercial developments on main roads and in business districts, planned around access, parking and the trades the location supports. Building-level design is covered on our commercial buildings page.
Retail and commercial units
Smaller units for shops, services, workshops and offices, grouped so that they share parking, servicing and visibility. They suit businesses that need a good address without a whole building.
Showrooms and showroom buildings
Road-facing space for vehicles, equipment and large goods, from single-brand showrooms to buildings shared by several. See commercial showrooms.
Build-to-suit
Property designed and built for a specific occupier that commits before construction. See build-to-suit development.
What decides how a commercial property performs
Frontage and visibility
How much of the property can be seen from the road, from which direction and at what speed. On a fast road, a sign has seconds to be read.
Access and parking
Entry and exit that drivers can make safely, parking close to the door and enough of it for the uses planned, set against the planning rules.
Servicing
Deliveries, waste collection and maintenance routed away from customers, with loading space sized for the vehicles the businesses actually use.
Signage and approvals
Advertising and signage rules vary by location and authority, and they affect how well a business can announce itself. They belong in the brief, not the fit-out.
Flexibility
Units that combine or divide, structure that allows mezzanines, and services with spare capacity, so the property can follow its occupiers as they change.
Management
Shared parking, servicing and common areas kept in order by one responsible party, so that a single occupier's neglect does not drag down the rest.
Where commercial property works
Commercial locations fall into a few familiar types, and each favours different formats. Main-road frontage suits showrooms and larger standalone buildings that need to be seen from a distance. Service roads in and around industrial areas suit trade counters, suppliers and workshops that depend on vans and trucks. New residential districts need convenience retail, clinics and services within easy reach of homes.
Matching the format to the location is the first commercial decision, and it is often made wrongly: a showroom on a road nobody can turn off, or units designed for walk-in trade where every customer arrives by car. Getting the match right costs little at the start; correcting it later can mean a new access, a new layout or a different use.
Planning a scheme of units
A group of commercial units works when each unit can trade on its own while benefiting from the others. That depends on the basics: unit sizes that match the businesses the location attracts, enough frontage per unit for a sign and an entrance, shared parking that customers can find, and a service yard at the back that keeps deliveries away from the shopfronts.
The tenant mix matters too. Units that attract complementary businesses, such as trade suppliers beside workshops or clinics beside pharmacies, draw more customers than a random mix. The mix is best planned at the same time as the unit sizes that suit it.
Commercial development in depth
Two commercial formats have their own pages.
Commercial showrooms
Road-facing showrooms and showroom buildings for vehicles, equipment and large goods, planned from frontage to service yard.
Build-to-requirement
Build-to-suit development for occupiers who know what they need: the requirement comes first and the building follows.
Approvals that shape commercial property
Commercial development meets the authorities at more points than most. Access onto the road network needs approval and often dictates where entrances can go. Parking standards set how much of the plot is given to cars. Signage and advertising rules decide what a business can display. Each of these can change the layout, so each is checked before the design is fixed rather than after.
Commercial land
Much of the value in commercial property comes from the land: a corner plot on a main road, a frontage on a busy service road, a site at the entrance to an industrial area. The owner of such land can sell it, lease it or develop on it, and each route keeps a different share of the value and carries a different share of the risk.
Choosing between them starts with what the location will support and what the owner wants from the land. Our page for landowners explains the routes, and land and urban development covers the work needed to bring a site to the point where it can be built on.
Commercial property over time
Commercial property is a long-term asset, and the businesses in it will change. A scheme that works well is one where a unit can be re-let without major works, where parking and servicing still make sense when the occupier mix shifts, and where the buildings can be refreshed rather than replaced. Those qualities are set in the plan and the structure, and they are what investors in commercial property look for when they assess an asset.
Planning commercial space?
Tell us about the business, the location you need and the frontage or floor area you are working with.
Discuss commercial property