Toulouse wants to create a real luxury district, here is the sector targeted by the town hall
While rue de Metz will be transformed by 2025, the town hall intends to give a strong commercial identity around luxury in the years to come. The details.
By Anthony Assemat Published onNews ToulouseSee my newsAfter rue Alsace-Lorraine, place Saint-Pierre, rue Bayard and the axis towards Matabiau station, the Jean-Jaurès alleys and other emblematic sectors of Toulouse renovated in recent years, the town hall of Toulouse is heading on rue de Metz. The part between François-Verdier and Esquirol is the priority of this 2020-2026 mandate.
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"Soothing the streets of Metz"
Widened sidewalks, vegetation, cohabitation between the different modes, differentiated flows… The objective is “to calm the rue de Metz”, according to Julie Escudier, the mayor of the Carmes-Capitole district, and to reduce the number of cars in an artery which makes the direct junction between the right bank and the left bank.
What commercialism?
In parallel with this gigantic project, the consultation of which ended on June 4, 2021, the town hall of Toulouse is considering the commercial offer of the street. What dynamic to instill? And what identity to give it? Currently, the offer is fragmented with many banks or mutual insurance companies, but also a few top-of-the-range shops and a garden center giant (Truffaut). The details with Olivier Arsac, deputy mayor in charge of shops:
Rue de Metz, the crossroads of several luxury streets
This identity, which the Capitol has prioritized for the rue de Metz, is luxury. The town hall wishes to amplify a luxury identity which today is mainly concentrated on rue Croix-Baragnon (Vuitton, Longchamp, etc.), rue des Arts or rue d'Astorg. Arteries parallel or adjoining the rue de Metz, the crossroads of these well marked districts. “Big brands are sensitive to urban projects. And a district of beautiful brands must be identified in a city like Toulouse. The luxury brands are there but they are poorly identified. The top-of-the-range lever is a source of influence for the city,” continues Olivier Arsac.
A study had targeted the commercial identity of the city center
At the end of 2016, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Toulouse (CCIT) published a study on the commercial identity of the city center of the Pink City, which has approximately 1,600 shops for 220,000 m 2 of commercial surface and around twenty kilometers of commercial route. A study that identified several different entities in the city center:
Beyond Paris and its Golden Triangle, the elected official cites Bordeaux (Gironde) as an example. The neighbor of the Garonne is, according to him, much better identified than Toulouse in this area.
The departure of Hermès in 2020
A Toulouse luxury sector which suffered a bad blow with the closure of the Hermès boutique at the end of February 2020. Located rue des Arts, it had been present in the Pink City since 1958. “I don’t know in what form, but Hermès will come back to Toulouse one day,” says Olivier Arsac. In Occitania, the famous brand is now only present in Montpellier (Hérault), plus Biarritz (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) and Bordeaux (Gironde) in the South-West zone.
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Luxury, the privileged hypothesis
Is the departure of Hermès related to the multiple demonstrations of yellow vests in the city center, every Saturday, between the end of 2018 and 2020? The center of Toulouse was one of the epicentres of the demonstrations, and the 4th city of France is the one which suffered the most damage with its batch of broken or tagged shop windows. How, then, to attract big names in the future? And in a sector often singled out. Such is the challenge for the town hall of Toulouse if this hypothesis, favored at present to redefine the commercial axis of the rue de Metz, materializes in the months and years to come.
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