Regional news. Plaine Commune celebrates its tenth birthday by launching an ambitious development plan.

Plaine Commune, the second-largest agglomeration community in Paris Region, is celebrating its tenth birthday by launching an ambitious development plan. The eight towns belonging to the intercommunal structure – Aubervilliers, Epinay-sur-Seine, La Courneuve, L’Ile-Saint-Denis, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, Saint-Denis, Stains and Villetaneuse – recently approved a five-year investment plan (2010-2015) as part of the sustainable development plan approved in 2007 (the ‘Plan d’Aménagement et de Développement Durable’, abbreviated as PADD). One of the flagship projects covers public planning schemes, including urban and residential development projects like the Ecoquartier (eco-neighbourhood) on Ile-Saint-Denis in the Seine river, the ZAC-Canal (Canal business park) in Aubervilliers and Campus Condorcet (see article (in french only)

To find out more, read the Plaine Commune sustainable development plan in full (French only).

Plaine-Commune in brief:
Dynamic economic sectors:
Banking/insurance
ICT
Energy (EDF)
Aerospace (Eurocopter, Delage Aéro, Précilec)

Transport links
Extension of two Metro lines (12 and 13), two RER (high-speed metro) lines (B and D), light railway, two motorways (A86 and A1), three planned light railway links and a proposed TGV (high-speed rail) station.

Teaching and research:
Plaine-Commune has a total of 1,500 university research/teaching staff, divided between three institutions (Paris 8, Paris 13 and CNAM) and 40,000 students. The community also has two technology platforms – focused on engineering/production materials and art/science/technology – whose role is to forge links between the research centres and innovative businesses.

Real estate:
In 2009, the agglomeration community offered 1,400,000 m² of office space, with plans for a further 926,000 m² to be developed.

Source: Les Echos du 17/02/2010; www.plainecommune.fr

© Plaine Commune/DMS

Paris Region mapped out for you:

Discover the economic potential of Plaine-Commune on Econovista, the interactive economic map of Paris Region

Looking to invest in Paris Region? Assess potential locations with Econovista, the interactive economic map of Paris Region

Business parks. Sénart, an outstanding place to live and work

Bordered by the forests of Sénart and Rougeau, and set alongside the winding course of the River Seine, Sénart offers an unspoilt environment for living and working in. Businesses located here – in immediate proximity to Evry, Corbeil-Essonnes and the Carré Sénart retail park – have within reach all the services and facilities they need to grow.

Greenparc
Bordered by the Greenparc golf course, this business park boasts an outstanding location, offering fast access to the Francilienne ring road and the A6 and A5 motorways, with Paris-Orly airport just 20 minutes away. Greenparc offers development sites suitable for premises of 500 to 2,500 m², for the use of high value-added service-sector and high-tech businesses.

Les Vergers
Plots available for the development of 5,000 m² premises for the use of manufacturers, distributors and trading companies seeking to benefit from an upmarket image and a prestigious landscape setting fronting the Francilienne ring road.

La Clef de Saint-Pierre
This mixed-use 28-hectare business park will offer 15 hectares dedicated to businesses, combining an eco-neighbourhood with a range of services. It will offer real-estate opportunities enjoying an exceptionally good location, linking the centre of Saint-Pierre-du-Perray with the Carré Sénart complex at the heart of Sénart new town.

Le Gravois
A prestigious location bordering Sénart forest, reserved for large-scale projects with more than 50 hectares available as a single unit.

Le Carré Sénart
The Carré Sénart complex effectively forms the hub of Sénart new town, hosting many retail and leisure facilities and administrative services. This urban centre continues to grow steadily with development projects including offices, retail outlets and leisure facilities.

Source: “Votre entreprise à Sénart en Essonne”, EPA Sénart (Sénart development agency)

© EPA Senart - Philippe Caumes

Assess your selected locations and identify organisations to assist with your location project on Econovista, the free interactive map of Paris Region

Waterside real estate. Going with the Parisian flow

Throughout its history, the Paris Region has had a close relationship with the river Seine and its tributaries. As the birthplace of the city of Paris, it has shaped the development of the entire region over hundreds of years. The Paris Region is washed not only by the Seine, which flows right through it, but also by the Marne, the Oise, the Yonne, the Aube and the Loing at its edges, as well as by the Ourcq and the Saint Martin, Saint-denis and Ourcq canals. Today, the banks of the river are occupied by urban development, landscaped walks, busy ports and major business centers.

A river for business
Waterways play an important role in the economic life of the Paris Region. 60 urban ports and 10 multimodal interchanges are home to 600 companies for all types located in infrastructures managed by Ports de Paris, the publicly-owned authority responsible for developing, maintaining and operating the region’s port facilities. These facilities contribute to making this the most important commercial river route in France and the second-largest in Europe, with 20 million metric tons of freight carried in 2008. Ports of Paris is also the largest developers and real estate operators in the Paris Region. It manages 1,000 hectares of industrial land on which it owns 280,000 m² of real estate outright. A further 700,000 m² has been constructed on its land by its clients. Ports de Paris offers powerful incentives for companies to use the river as a logistics resource, going as far as to offer a “waterways discount” to tenants. Against this background of success and an occupancy rate approaching 80%, the Ports is an active and enthusiastic buyer of waterside real estate.

An eco-friendly form of transportation
The rivers of the Paris Region already carry 13% of its freight traffic, removing nearly one million trucks per year from the region’s road network. According to Pascal Moebal, Maritime Director France of Schenker, the leading international provider of integrated logistics services, “River transportation addresses the negative issues surrounding road freight, from both the environmental and congestion points of view”.

© Bercy, Port autonome de Paris

Source: Paris-Region Magazine, issue 9, march 2010

Find out the harbour platforms and the main economic places of Paris Region on Econovista, the economic map of Paris Region

Available free of charge, the paper map Econovista, elaborated in partnership with the Ports of Paris
Contact: econovista@paris-region.com

Innovation Support. Paris, a place where make your company grow

Paris is unquestionably one of the world’s most beautiful cities. Its image as a romantic city has helped to make it the world’s favourite tourist destination. But there’s another and completely different Paris.

As part of maintaining its dynamic economy at the same time as preserving urban diversity, the City of Paris has earmarked 10% (900 hectares) of its land for the development of major urban projects offering significant economic benefit. By 2020, the stock of commercial real estate will be 18 million m² (see inset), part of which is specifically dedicated to innovation, with the aim of transforming Paris into a laboratory of creativity, innovation and experimentation.

To achieve this reality, Paris has developed business clusters, enterprise zones and business start-up and growth centers to support innovative young companies working on the technologies of tomorrow. By 2014, 100,000 m² of such facilities will be available to house leading-edge businesses, with the focus on the Information Technologies, Telecommunications, Healthcare, the Biotechnologies and Design. The ecoatmosphere of Paris encourages meetings between people working in very different industry sectors, and facilitates collaborative working between laboratories, universities and companies. This enormous network is particularly visible in the competitiveness clusters that pool the expertise and skills of public and private research institutes. They coordinate the community of industry players, and provide support for innovative companies and researchers.

This highly fertile soil is a great place for Information and Communication Technology companies to put down roots. Bruno Maisonnier, Head of Aldebaran Robotics, looks back on the beginnings of his domestic robotics project in 2005. This ambitiously-innovative project would never have seen the light of day without the help provided by the département. “There’s a huge amount of support available in Paris for innovative technologies”, says Bruno Maisonnier. Having begun his business in the Agoranov start-up center, he “received terrific support that helped us cross the threshold to international recognition.” Designed as a practical assistant for incapacitated humans, the company’s humanoid robot is now known all over the world by the name of NAO.

Anticipating the essential role robotics will inevitably play in coming years, Bruno Maisonnier has been able to develop his product with support from Cap Digital, the competitiveness cluster for digital content, which brought together 13 partners (SMEs, leading R&D labs and users) as part of the ROMEO project within the Cap Robotique cluster. Cap Digital also hosts at least 100 other equally avantgarde projects, including TerraNumerica, the hyper-detailed urban environment digital modeling project led by Thales, and Play All, which is developing a crossplatform tool chain standard for the computer gaming industry. There can be no doubt that Paris is an ITC stronghold and hotspot within Europe.

Source : Paris Region Magazine

© Alderaban Robotics

Discover all members of Cap Digital, the competitiveness cluster for digital content, on Econovista, the free economic map of Paris Region

MIPIM 2008 : Paris Region, your Business is Capital

Functioning as a global market place, MIPIM provides an unique opportunity for industry decision-makers to meet, develop long-term relationships and showcase their latest development projects. The 2008 edition (11-14th March) broke last year's record with the attendance of 29,300 delegates.

During this event, the Paris Region's Stand concentrated more than 35 exhibitors from all places of the region. The visitors had the possibilities to meet a large number of representives and executives from each "Département" (county) of our region. They had also the opportunities to discover all the projects of the Paris Region's commercial real estate.

The Paris Region boasts Europe's leading commercial real estate offering, ahead of London in the office space market, with:

• 49 million sq.m of office space
• 30 million sq.m of business space
• 29 million sq.m of warehouse space.

Our brochure "Commercial real estate in the Paris Region" is available for free in english or french. 24 strategic business sites are described. Contact : econovista(at)paris-region.com

With our interactive map econovista, you can also discover the multiplicity of sites of the Paris region. Please Click HERE.