Today, the lack of premises for firms is one of the main problems throughout the technopole. A paradoxical situation since both demand and plots are there…
Well! Works are beginning across the technopole. Programs are launched everywhere. A state of emergency is occurring. For more than one year in Sophia there has been a property business shortage. The technopole development has been jammed by the businesses property business bottleneck. With the enormous risk of missing the wave of a new economy, of which the technopole is one of the spearheads in France!
Banks and property developers did not believe in the resumption
The situation has been evoked several times. It is all the more dismaying that Sophia Antipolis has building lands for sale. More than 80,000 m² of plots are waiting to be built. But banks and property developers, hesitant since the crisis at the beginning of the 90s did not believe in it. Before beginning the building works, they demanded very strict leases for more than three quarters of the program. And, even if the signatures are often extremely good, foreign firms are reluctant to engage for 3, 6 or 9-year-long leases.
As far as the start-ups are concerned, which are also very important elements in the resumption, they really do not want to freeze for a long period, for their evolution speeds are very far from what they were previously. This can explain the jam.
The SAEM (Société d'Aménegement d'Economie Mixte) which manages the technological park, had already sounded the alarm bell in 1997. 'Stocks are decreasing, demand is growing, the resumption is there', the SAEM had said that year basing on figures. Nobody had taken that in consideration. Banks and property developers refused to take the responsibility while the State had preferred to let the market evolve at its rate.
It is urgent to build
Since the beginning of the year, the State as well as the territorial communities refuse to take the responsibilities. The Prefect Jean-René Garnier had created a sensation during the CAD (Côte d'Azur Développement) general meeting at this year's beginning. 'It is useless to spend money in order to attract foreign firms if we do not have anything to welcome them', he said. Roger Duhalde, the first vice-president of the Regional Council, and at the same time the Symisa President (the inter-district union which manages the technopole) had answered some time further at the Nice-Matin newspaper that he accused the State of jamming the communities by restricting territorial measures of development.
However nobody wants to quarrel. Everybody wants to face the emergency. The wonderful place the technopole owns on the Internet, the presence of the ETSI, the World Wide Web Consortium…should allow to have, once again, a great development for some years and increase the number of jobs throughout the region
The property developers who fought, did not regret it. Claude Muller (SFBM Antibes Développement), for instance, who built a 9,000 m² building is already 'overbooked ' and has three big clients for a total of 20,000 m² to build. Another reason not to settle in the shortage.