Page 153 - 360.revista de Alta Velocidad - Nº 6

Central versus Peripheral High-Speed Rail Stations: Opportunities For Companies to Relocate?
The cases of Reims Central Station and Champagne-Ardenne Station

Internal relocations (i.e. from within the Reims area) mostly took place a few years earlier,
in 2011, and subsequently tailed off. The total proportion of company establishments of
internal origin is close to 80%.
In the Clairmarais district, the setting‐up of firms occurred in several waves, in 2004, 2007
and 2010, as soon as business real estate became available. The role of real‐estate developers
was therefore particularly important. However, they exhibited different behaviours around
each of the two stations. While developers maintained their construction projects around
the central station, some of them postponed projects around the peripheral station amid
the economic crisis. For example, the Mazars group, which had bought land in Bezannes
with the aim of building offices just before the arrival of the HSR, sold off this land quickly
from 2008 onwards.

Centrality therefore probably played an insurance role for real‐estate developers, and
particularly for local developers, which helped in turn to reassure external developers;
however, by definition, this insurance effect of centrality did not benefit the peripheral
station.
In the new development area in Bezannes, the settlement of outside firms – “exogenous
creations” – has always been very rare. Only one exogenous creation set up in Bezannes
in 2013 (corresponding to 4.17% of all firms in the area). Since that date, growth in the
number of external relocations (16.67%) has been increasing. External locations as a whole
represent more than 20% of firms in Bezannes.

If we compare company locations of internal and external origin in both areas, the
proportion of outside firms is approximately a quarter in Bezannes, compared with a
little over a third in Clairmarais. It is therefore fair to say that both areas mainly attract
local firms.
However, the nature of the businesses coming to Reims from outside the city is completely
different in each area. While Clairmarais attracts mostly exogenous creations (21.43%),
this proportion falls to 4.17% in Bezannes. Conversely, exogenous relocations are quite
rare in Clairmarais (4.76%) but are more frequent in Bezannes (16.67%). Indeed, firms
with large office spaces are mainly concerned by exogenous relocations. Their activities
require large offices, of which Bezannes has a plentiful supply. Furthermore, office
rents and real‐estate prices are more attractive in Bezannes than in Clairmarais (see
above). Exogenous creations – generally smaller firms – typically seek to benefit from the
centrality and image of Clairmarais. Therefore, they tend to choose locations around the
central station.

4.2 The location factors self‐reported by firms

The location factors self‐reported by the firms surveyed are analysed first overall, and then
hierarchically, initially by order of citation and lastly by business type.
First, in both areas, the number‐one factor cited was office availability (14.93% for Bezannes
– at the same level as accessibility and the district’s image – and 20.23% for Clairmarais).
Other factors then differed (Table 5).
In Bezannes, the next most important factors are the proximity of clients (11.94%) and car
parking (10.45%); by contrast, HSR is only cited by 5.97% of firms. In Clairmarais, the image
of the neighbourhood, the proximity of clients and the presence of HSR were all cited by
10.71% of firms.

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