Aerial view of the Marne-Soleil project in Mérignac -

La Fab

  • The Marne-Soleil district of Mérignac is best known for its shopping center, its “shoe boxes” and its congested avenues.

  • Very bituminous, this sector also represents “the most important heat island in the agglomeration”.

  • The objective of the 15-year project is to plant 10,000 trees and create two parks in addition to 2,800 housing units along the tramway.

The district is best known for its shopping center, its large stores lined up like “shoe boxes”, and its busy avenues, especially on Saturdays.

Operation Marne-Soleil, on avenue de la Marne and the Mérignac Soleil shopping center, is one of the most important urban operations in Bordeaux Métropole.

Scheduled over 15 years, its ambition is to redesign this entire sector to “sew it up” with the rest of the city, explains Jérôme Goze, Deputy Managing Director of La Fab, La Fabrique de Bordeaux Métropole, which is piloting this huge urban project.

The operation will be based on the extension of line A of the tramway to the airport, scheduled for the end of 2022, and which will cross the entire sector, to make it the backbone of future developments.

"The objective is to transform this long corridor of bitumen, concrete and commercial signs, into a more welcoming entrance to town and metropolis, with nature since we are going to plant 10,000 trees in this segment", summarizes the mayor of Mérignac and president of the metropolis Alain Anziani (PS).

"We will have to decrease"

Greening is at the heart of the Marne-Soleil project.

Two parks and islands of freshness are planned.

"This sector represents the most important heat island in the agglomeration", assures Jérôme Goze, who says he measured the summer "temperatures of over 70 ° C in some very asphalted places" of the district.

“This kind of commercial area from the 1960s provided all the services it needed, but today we have to heal this territory.

For this, it will be necessary to crust, that is to say literally remove the crust to find full soil, plant.

We want to create a green setting that will allow a new urbanism to emerge.

"

On 300,000 m2, this program should also create 2,800 housing units, 35% of which are social rental housing.

"We need more housing because we need it" insists Alain Anziani, even if he recognizes "that the inhabitants are fed up with seeing too many buildings, too much densification ... There is a real divide between our inhabitants and town planning as it has been conceived for 20 years, continues the president of the metropolis.

This is why the solution is to target a certain number of places, in particular near public transport, to concentrate housing there.

And in these islets, a lot of vegetation is needed, to create hanging gardens.

The question that will arise will also be to build more in height, to free up floor space and create more parks and squares.

"

"More human dimension"

Example: the conversion of the old Peugeot garage will make way for 220 housing units, as well as a public square with terraces, and more than 5,000 m2 of green spaces with 250 trees planted.

Or, the reconversion of the site formerly occupied by Castorama, provides in addition to 386 housing units, the creation of 2 hectares of natural spaces including a park of one hectare.

The reconversion of the old Castorama site in Mérignac must make way, in particular, for a one-hectare park - La Fab

"Today, it is a site almost exclusively dedicated to commerce, we are going to transform it so that it becomes much more pleasant to live in," continues Jean-Yves Meunier, operational director at La Fab.

The tram will be its backbone, and it will be necessary to create links between the tram stations and the shopping center in particular, with a more human dimension, which involves tree-lined pedestrian paths.

"

"Switch to a more qualitative system of commercial ground floors"

The district will however remain very commercial, since 90,000 m2 of shops are planned.

But, “it will have to evolve towards villages of shops, estimates Alain Anziani.

For a very long time, shopping centers emptied town centers of their shops, today this is the reverse since it is the town center business model that is favored.

Shopping centers will therefore have to adapt their model to make local products, from the short circuit.

We are in a revolution of the supermarket model.

"

“The brands themselves want to change their concept,” confirms Jean-Yves Meunier, “and we are supporting them in this process.

We want to move from the shoebox system that we have in front of us, to a more qualitative system of commercial ground floors.

"

Our Bordeaux dossier

Around 20 million euros of investments are planned for public spaces, and 65 million euros for development.

Budget to which will be added the investment of private promoters.

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