PLACE4CITY – place partnerships for adaptive reuse and sustainable flows of people and goods in city centres

Marketplace opportunity

Title: PLACE4CITY – place partnerships for adaptive reuse and sustainable flows of people and goods in city centres

Type of cooperation sought: Looking for partners to join a project

Topic: Cross-cutting topic 1 – Adaptive reuse of existing urban structures and spaces (15-minute city as main pathway; circular economy and energy as secondary) · Innovation-oriented approach (IOA)

Description:
City centres face vacant premises, congested kerbs and growing delivery, service and waste traffic. Many solutions fall between individual property owners, businesses and the city, so nobody coordinates them at district level.

PLACE4CITY tests place partnerships as that missing coordinating level. By place partnerships we mean city-centre and town-centre management organisations, Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) and BIZ zones. Together with property owners, businesses, logistics and mobility providers and cities, we will co-create district-level green travel and freight plans. We will then pilot adaptive reuse of existing space: vacant units, basements, courtyards, parking and kerbs turned into shared delivery points, micro-hubs, parcel and mobility points, and spaces for reuse and repair. We will also develop business and financing models so that partnerships can keep these solutions running after the project.

The project is timely: Sweden adopted its first law on area-based collaboration in 2026, and new partnerships are now defining their plans.

Current consortium: RISE Research Institutes of Sweden (coordinator) and a city-centre management organisation in Gothenburg, with partners from Austria and Denmark in discussion.

We are looking for:

• City-centre management organisations, BIDs or BIZ, especially in the Netherlands, Belgium (Flanders), Spain or Poland, that could host a living lab

• Municipalities willing to test adaptive-reuse measures for deliveries, mobility or circular services

• Companies in urban logistics, shared mobility, waste and reuse services, or property management

• Research partners in place management, urban logistics or business models

Partners should check that their national funding agency covers the cross-cutting topic (see Annex A of the call text).

Timeline: Pre-proposal deadline 17 November 2026. We aim to finalise the consortium by 12 November.

Keywords: place partnerships, town-centre management, BID, adaptive reuse, urban freight, city logistics, 15-minute city, shared mobility, circular economy, living labs

Profile (organisation description)

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden is a state-owned research institute working with industry, the public sector and society on sustainable transitions. Our team works on urban logistics, consolidation, shared mobility hubs and business models for sustainable cities. We have led pilots and system demonstrations with cities, property owners and logistics providers in Gothenburg, including in the Horizon 2020 project MOVE21 and the Vinnova project REDIG. We also have earlier comparative research on BIDs and city-centre organisations in Gothenburg, London and New York.

What we offer: coordination, co-creation and living-lab methods, pilot evaluation, business-model development, and an existing network of Swedish city-centre partners.

Who we want to meet: place partnerships, municipalities, companies and researchers interested in adaptive reuse of city-centre space for logistics, mobility and circular services.