Client: City of Quickborn
Project period: June – October 2025
The project in brief
Like many medium-sized towns, Quickborn is faced with the task of making its city center and local supply locations fit for the future. To achieve this, the town would like to actively manage the mix of retail and gastronomy, close gaps in the offering and increase the quality of stay.
On behalf of Quickborn’s business development department, we are developing a retail and gastronomy concept including a strategy for relocation and acquisition. The project focuses on five central locations – from the city center to the northern commercial area.
Task and background
Quickborn’s last retail concept dates back to 2016. Since then, the general conditions, customer behavior and sector structures have changed significantly. At the same time, the previous city center management expired at the end of July 2025.
Quickborn is sending a clear signal with its new city center development project: Retail, services and gastronomy remain a central component of urban development. To achieve this, Quickborn needs a practicable concept from us that:
- clearly positioned the five relevant locations in the city,
- provides concrete settlement and operator recommendations,
- structured the acquisition of suitable companies and
- provides business development with concrete tools for acquisition.
How does Quickborn position itself in the Hamburg metropolitan region? The concept provides answers
Our way of working
Understanding location
In the first project step, we are positioning Quickborn as a retail and gastronomy location in the regional environment. This includes:
- Basic determination: evaluation of data, documents, expert opinions
- Location analysis: location, accessibility, socio-economics and purchasing power
- Competitive analysis: Quickborn’s role in the Hamburg metropolitan region
Analyzing structures and potential
Based on these principles, our experts led by Mathias Sander and Sophie May work out the potential of the retail and gastronomy structure in Quickborn. Our way of working:
- Discussions with stakeholders from retail and gastronomy
- Analysis of supply, demand, consumer behavior, target groups (incl. product range comparison)
- Evaluation of the five locations according to role, strengths and opportunities
- Strategy workshop on target groups, formats and levers
Planning settlement and acquisition
In the final project step, we turn data into action: We provide Quickborn’s economic development department with an implementation-oriented acquisition strategy:
- Fact sheets / location brochure with strengths and qualities
- Settlement targets and target industries per location
- Identification of potential operators and investors
- Recommendations for marketing and communication measures
- Best practices from other cities (as a benchmark and for inspiration)
Strategy instead of coincidence: Quickborn strengthens retail, gastronomy and local supply in the future with well thought-out goals and measures
The result
Our retail and gastronomy concept for Quickborn sharpens the profiles of five locations across the city and defines specific relocation targets as well as the future acquisition strategy. This provides business development with directly applicable tools to improve the sector mix, reduce vacancies and sustainably revitalize the city centre and central local supply locations.
Photos: Stadtmanufaktur
