Toulouse. Paid parking, signage, new brands… This shopping center is undergoing a revolution
Through Guillaume Laurens
Published on
Gramont is making his revolution. displaying 52,000 m2surface, this shopping center located east of Toulouse is one of the largest in the city. This temple of consumption in the Pink City, served day and night by metro line A, is currently the subject of a vast renovation campaign, for the trifle of 13 million euros. New storefront, new logo, new interior and exterior look… Here’s what’s going on there.
Floor to ceiling indoors
A inside at the Gramont shopping center, the ceilings, lighting and signage have been brought up to date. The floors have also been redone in recent months.
From rest areas – prepare USB sockets to fill up with batteries – have been fitted out, also with a playground for kids. Apart from the Auchan hypermarket itself, the entire center, which has also gone into “Christmas decoration” mode before the holidays, has given itself a real makeover.
After Maisons du Monde, Starbucks, Pitaya …
Gramont wants to give itself a new impetus. And this also involves the arrival of new flagship brands, more standing: after Houses of the world in 2019, the coffee shop chain Starbucks and the Thai restaurant chain Pitaya settles down at the end of the year. A new creative brand made in France, Suzanne’s Workshop, will soon bring his fancy jewelry.
Last spring, it was the famous Italian ice cream at the kiosk Amorino who set their sights on Gramont, before the nutrition and food supplements brand for sport Biotech USA, which opened in early November.
The silo car park under construction, the alley that connects the center to the metro redone
But the most visible part of Gramont’s mutation concerns the work carried out outside of the Center. First there is the parking silo, where towers have been set off for two years, and where titanic works are currently taking place: after a construction defect, the promoter behind the work must add 250 reinforced concrete beams to support the structure.
In addition to this project beyond its control, the shopping center itself undertook major works on its forecourt. In particular at the level of the pedestrian walkway dependent the shopping center at the metro station, which has been “extended and renovated”.
The big bang of parking lots
And then, ours the car parks (above ground and underground) are undergoing a complete renovation: signage, counting by aisle and segmented by zones, guidance instead in the basement … for families, motorcycles, and bicycles, “with dynamic guidance everywhere ”, explains Eric Boucher, director of the center. Totems indicating the number of places available per aisle have in fact been installed.
Everything is done so that consumers “find it easy to park”. These vast works must be completed “At the end of the first quarter of 2022”.
Barriers in service in spring
It is only once this work is completed that the famous terminals and barriers, installed at the end of 2019 at the various entrances to the Gramont car parks, to curb parking, will come into service. Either probably “In early spring 2022, except for new risks, ”breathes the director of the center.
Initially, the device was to be “put into service on 1uh April 2020, but it fell in full during the first confinement, it turned all our plans upside down, ”says Éric Boucher. As the health crisis was not the most suitable period to set up the system, management finally preferred to wait until the end of its parking lot work before putting these barriers into service.
Three hours free, then 50 cents for a quarter of an hour
With this barrier system, the shopping center intends focus on consumers … rather than metro users. “The idea is not to penalize our customers, but on the contrary to get them seats”, defends Eric Boucher. This parking control system provides “Three hours free for all users”, whether they are customers of the mall or not. Beyond these 3 hours? “Parking will be charged 50 cents a quarter of an hour “, announces the director.
The shopping center denies wanting to make a profit with this new system: “It will above all cost us more, since the charges will be higher than the expected revenues”, develops Éric Berger. “The only purpose is to allow our customers to park again on the 3,000 pitches from the shopping center ”.
600 to 700 suction cup cars in Gramont, over 3,000 places
Because if the problem faded during the successive confinements, it resumed with a vengeance at the start of the school year … Since 2004 and the extension of metro line A to Balma-Gramont, the parking lot of the shopping center has become the anteroom of the Tisséo park and ride. The latter being regularly broadcast from the start of the day, many motorists arriving from eastern Toulouse set their sights on the private parking lot in Gramont. They leave their vehicles there in the morning… and collect them at the end of the day, after work. Other inhabitants, who reside in Toulouse, also leave their cars all week here to avoid paying for parking in town …
At the arrival, ” 600 to 700 suction cup cars ” daily squat in the Gramont car park, mainly at the front, as close as possible to the metro. And if the shopping center had tried for a while to close part of the parking lot at night, that had not made it possible to stem the phenomenon… And the shopping center had had to resolve to install these barriers.
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