The Confluence district, a vast 150-hectare site at the tip of the Peninsula, continues to transform. The area’s redevelopment has one overriding goal: to contribute to a “smart” and sustainable city.
Many building projects finished
Over the last 5 years, many developments have been completed, including Hikari, the first positive energy urban island and many buildings in the Denuzière neighbourhood. In total, 730 new housing units have been
delivered since 2015. By the Rhône, the former Halle Girard building has been refurbished and now holds H7, Lyon’s totem space for French Tech. A 600 metre-square food court has also just opened to the public and will offer the services of close to 150 vendors throughout the year. Further south, building work on the Ycone tower, designed by the architect Jean Nouvel, was completed in March 2019. Recently, Décathlon has also opened a new concept store. It covers 2,500 sq. m. of floor space in the Lyon Confluence shopping centre, employs around forty staff and aims to become a “space of life, games and tests,” according to Xavier Rivoire, the Institutional Communications Director at Decathlon United. He added that the idea is to “bring sport back into the heart of cities, to give power back to the place.” The group wants the new store to become a meeting point for athletes from the area as well as those just passing through, by providing running sessions, personalised clothing, smart fitting rooms, free advice from nutritionists and physiotherapists and so on. The pioneering store epitomises the Confluence neighbourhood’s dynamic, which aims to make it a place for genuine experimentation in the heart of the city.
Ambitious projects for the coming years
A unique concept in Europe will be arriving in Lyon’s Confluence district by 2020: Lumen, the City of Light. Just as H7 is emblematic of the digital industry, the new site aims to be a showcase for Lyon’s lighting industry and to welcome professionals, and the cities’ residents and tourists alike. “I hope that Lumen in Lyon will make lighting the 21st-century equivalent of silk,” said Philippe Badaroux, Managing Director of the Cluster Lumière, which is driving the project. Nearly six hundred jobs will be created at Lumen, and it will be home to a 1,000 sq. m. decoworking space for designers and start-ups working in the field. The first floor will be devoted to research and will boast a showroom that reveals the latest discoveries and creations of the region’s lighting industry to the general public. 3,500 sq. m. of floor space on the 2nd to 7th floors will be available for rental and will be designed for a variety of uses, including offices and meeting and conference rooms. The goal? to appeal to a vast range of actors within the lighting industry from large groups to start-ups, including consulting engineers, research laboratories, designers, architects and even trade associations. “As a central meeting point for all the operators in the industry, Lumen will be able to draw on a number of assets to become a major player at regional, national and international level,” Philippe Badaroux stated.
Another far-reaching project: the Confluence district recently joined the network of signatories to Greater Lyon’s tree charter. The aim is to plant nearly 2,000 more trees to reach the goal of 4,500. “Confluence has innovated and is racing to become a sustainable city-centre environment, adapted to the challenges of global warming. It is a space for large-scale experimentation. We have to accelerate, because revegetation is an absolutely indispensable response to climate change. […] These developments are also allowing us to work on soil fertility, which is a real challenge in our city centres”, said David Kimelfeld, President of the Metropole.
The Confluence district in figures
- 15,000 employees today, 25,000 by 2025
- 12,000 residents today, 17,000 anticipated by 2030
- 4,989 homes to be built (when project completed)
- 100,000 sq. m. of tertiary sector buildings to be delivered by 2020
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