There is a big demand for housing in the Netherlands and a significant portion of that demand can be facilitated through urban redevelopments. Urban development is hindered by financial barriers that cause public financial deficits. Stimulating urban redevelopment can be achieved by stimulating feasibility. The developers’ contribution is a value-capturing tool that can facilitate private contributions to public space. Through contributions in public space, feasibility can be stimulated by optimizing and widening the developers’ business case. Using the Delphi method, a panel of developers was formed to analyse the relation between the developers’ contribution and developer decision-making in practice. Decision-making is determined by the type of contribution, benefits for the developer, a context and conditions. Private contributions to public mean taking responsibility in some way. Doing this can add value in various ways, but developers are mainly driven by financial aspects. There are certain conditions to doing the contribution, of which the level of financial feasibility is the most important. The willingness to contribute is highest when a municipally adopts a passive role. Developers should be aware of the benefits and municipalities must be aware of the context that enables private contributions. Further research could improve the significance and confidence in the findings.

Cities coop with the problem of increasing demand for housing due to urbanisation, while trying to maintain and improve its attractiveness and city image. Improving attractiveness and the city image can be achieved by urban renewal. In Rotterdam, The National Programme Rotterdam-Zuid (NPRZ) was initiated to tackle the disadvantages and improve the quality of life in Rotterdam-Zuid (the worst neighbourhood of The Netherlands). An image and economic improvement was realised in Rotterdam-Zuid. However, too little residents of Rotterdam-Zuid did benefit from this economic improvement. More positive impacts in the area are necessary and urban renewal could improve these areas. However, urban renewal occurs at a too low pace. A positive impact for this process is necessary. An event can succeed in catalysing urban renewal, by strategically planning the event beforehand. As a result, the event can deliver hard and soft impacts on the area. After the Netherlands won the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) in May 2019 in Tel Aviv, the city of Rotterdam was chosen as the host city of the ESC 2020 in Ahoy Rotterdam. Ahoy Rotterdam is located in Rotterdam-Zuid. This event could be an opportunity for Rotterdam to positively impact the renewal of Rotterdam-Zuid and indirectly improve the city’s attractiveness and image. The problem which this research tries to tackle is how to positively impact the urban renewal of Rotterdam-Zuid by strategically planning the Eurovision Song Contest 2020/2021. This research aims to explore and understand the benefits of hosting cultural events, like the Eurovision Song Contest, in relation to their contribution to urban renewal. Based on the defined problem, the following main question is formed for this research: “Which elements when hosting a cultural great event could positively impact and catalyse urban renewal?” To answer the main question a qualitative approach was chosen. This approach includes a literature review, explorative semi-structured interviews with experts and a case study of the urban renewal project Hart van Zuid (HvZ) in relation to the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) in Rotterdam. For this case study, reports have been analysed and semi-structured interviews with stakeholders of both HvZ and the ESC have been held. From the results of literature, explorative interviews, case description and case study interviews it can be concluded that social impacts occur the most and on a short-term basis. An important observation which has been made is the importance of a connection in the form of a relationship between the event and the urban renewal project. The impacts that have been found are divided in the categories of social impact, economic impacts and physical impact. First, side-events are mentioned as an important means to create a social impact on an area. Important is that these side-events have a character that shows the identity of the location, otherwise local people do not feel attracted to these events. Secondly, economic impacts are based on tourism generated by the event. For this impact, no necessary steps need to be taken by the municipality or other hosting organisation. Tourism leads to higher spending in the area and new facilities created by the urban renewal project captures this impact to create a positive long-term economic spin-off. Lastly, the physical impact is, due to the short preparation time, not as present as a social and/or economic impact. Opportunities like creating a marker in the area, speeding up the existing planning of urban renewal and using city dressing for the delivery of the buildings are however mentioned. This research suggests important elements which can be used to increase the successfulness and realisation of these social, economic and physical impacts.

The highly competitive and dynamic business environment of today has resulted in an increasing pressure for efficiency of the main resources. As corporations seek to quickly respond and adapt to the changes in the environment, strategic decisions about the workplace become fundamental as it entails the two most expensive resources of any organization: human capital and real estate. Within the wide range of flexible workplace options now available in the market, co-working is of particular interest due to its exponential growth in the last years; as this trend continues to grow and companies start considering it as part of their accommodation strategy, understanding the value of co-working in corporate real estate becomes essential. The aim of this research is to understand how co-working as a real estate strategy can contribute to the performance of a corporation, while meeting the flexibility demands of the organization and its knowledge workers. By means of a qualitative methodology, the research involves five case studies of front-runner organizations, and semi-structured interviews with co-working providers and workplace experts. The study results in the identification of six strategies that organizations, in different stages of maturity, can pursue to incorporate co-working as part of their real estate portfolio. The strategies include temporary space solutions, such as Swing Space or for Temporary Projects and Staff, and complementary space solutions, such as Core and Flex, Expansion Space, Testing Market and Touchdown Space alternatives, that corporations can implement, according to their requirements, to drive business performance.

With the current climate challenges that we currently face, we also need to take a look at the existing operation of the systems to which we are so accustomed. Within the EU, there are policies to make the housing stock energy neutral by 2050. However, this sentiment is not shared internationally. Within the EU, there are several options made available for making renovation of existing stock more financially feasible, with models provided by initiatives such as STUNNING, REVALUE, or ABRACADABRA to name a few. Though the EU has options made available, this is not the case for the rest of the world. The research focuses on the applicability of the aforementioned options available in the EU to a Middle Eastern context through the creation of a scenario building using aggregation methods and using a sensitivity and Monte Carlo analysis to check the performance of each financial model. The research also combines the
financial with other technical frameworks such as finding optimum insulation thicknesses and its influence on the pay back periods. The research works in 4 parts, creating a model building through aggregate modeling and frameworks, running the financial dashboard based on the characteristics of the model building and doing a sensitivity and Monte Carlo analysis, then finally an interview is conducted with experts, showing them the data of the model building and then asking about the limitations of said financial models. The applications are reviewed in a foreign context, in this case Kuwait, and
in addition, the effects of the large scale application of these models are examined in the literature review. The results show that financially speaking, it is completely feasible to apply these models within Kuwait, and in fact they work better than they do in western contexts because of the avoidance of the landlord-tenant conflict since landlords are responsible for paying utility fees. On average, given Kuwait’s current inflation rates, electricity prices, water prices and average rental rate per m2, we are seeing an average of a 4 year payback period on a major rehabilitation, without even the need for a real estate reevaluation. The micro economic results are also compared with studies made on macro-economic knock on effects of mass renovation within the country, and it was found that it was feasible. Through the interviews, however, it was found that though there are few barriers in the financial sense, there is a lack of understanding and need for a larger investigation into the sociological and behavioral barriers found within this context.

Today’s stadiums face increasing competition from home-viewing options, powered by better camera angles and multiplatform, multimedia experiences. Concurrent with these trends is the increase in computing power and near ubiquity of the smartphone. These technological developments create new opportunities to measure real-time space use. The service or product that can measure (real-time) space use is called a ‘smart tool’. There are some studies about smart tools, but these are not focussing on the integration in stadiums. This resulted in the following research question that will be addressed in this research: which smart tools can be identified in stadiums, and how can the use of these smart tools be optimized? Due to this nascent character of the research topic qualitative research is conducted, whereby literature is reviewed in combination with an exploratory case study. The case that is studied is the Johan Cruijff Arena in Amsterdam, the stadium has the ambition to be the most innovative stadium by 2020. Based on the case study, nine different smart tools are identified, whereby the main goals of the tools are to reduce costs and to support user activities. Based on the outcomes of this research it can be concluded that the integration of smart tools in stadiums are in their ‘infancy’. From these nine smart tool projects, only five were in use at the moment of the research, the other four were still under development. As a result, concrete numbers of the effects of integrating of smart tools are missing. However, the current experience of integrating smart tools in stadiums did generate some valuable insights on how the use of the tools can be optimized by linking the findings to innovations from practice. Recommendations are provided to guide stadium managers in the effective management of smart tools. Lastly, the research stresses out the importance of future research on this topic

This research concerns the economics of energy-efficient buildings: by merging auction theory and hedonic regression analyses, the price premium paid in the Netherlands for energy-efficient office buildings is investigated. The importance of the transition to an energy-efficient built environment is underlined by the increasing Dutch and European regulations regarding energy efficiency within the real estate market. As a result, the market for energy-efficient buildings has grown considerably in recent years. Therefore, office buildings increasingly have various voluntary and mandatory energy certificates. Since 2008, the energy label has been the measure of the energy performance of a building in the Netherlands and is therefore included as a test unit in this study.Problem analysis Most studies in this field have been conducted in the United States, primarily because CoStar has an extensive database of commercial real estate. As the Netherlands does not have such a centrally organized database, research into this subject is made more complex. Over the last couple of years, there has been growing interest in the financial performance of energy efficient buildings. However, the relatively large deviation and sometimes improbable contradictions of the identified price premiums in the various hedonic price studies might indicate that in some cases the models suffer from misspecification. It is possible that this results in an over- or underestimation of the rental price premium of energy efficiency in the Netherlands. This research presents a refined model to better isolate the effect of energy efficiency on the willingness-to-pay from the overall building quality, and therewith to determine the realistic rental premium for energy efficiency in the Dutch office market. Aim of the study This study aimed to determine the rental premium for energy efficient office buildings at the level of an office unit in the Randstad. An office unit is the office space that is included in a lease contract. In addition to the economic factors, location, and building characteristics, it was particularly important to include building and facade aesthetic features in the analysis, because such a control was missing in most comparable studies. It was expected that by controlling for aesthetic building and facade features, the rental premium for energy-efficient office buildings would be lower because the effect of energy efficiency on the rental price would be better isolated. Relevance Previous research in this field has shown that tenants are prepared to pay for energy-efficient office buildings. However, that research rarely controls for aesthetic building and facade features, which VII creates a gap in academic knowledge. By operationalizing and quantifying building and facade features, it is possible to control for these features. Therefore, the added academic value of this research is the more in-depth control of the aesthetic building and facade features. This research into the rental premium of energy-efficient office buildings in the Randstad contributes to the knowledge of stakeholders such as investors, developers, researchers, real estate agents, urban planners and policymakers. They need insight in the dynamics and influence of the energy efficiency of office buildings on the various office markets. This research offers the possibility of a practical application for the price characteristic as a benchmark within the valuation process. Methodology The aim of this research is to determine the rental premium of energy-efficient office buildings. The research wanted to give an accurate description of the actions that must be taken to achieve the goal of the research (Figure 2). Step 1 describes the reason and defines the problem statement by analysing the current context of the research field. Step 2 relates to the theoretical basis for regression analysis. Significant rental determinants within previous research have been identified to create a theoretical basis for the regression model. In step 3, data is collected for the multiple regression analysis and the mathematical specifications of the model are formulated. In step 4, the collected data is analysed and the regression model is formulated and designed. Different models are constructed and investigated. Step 5 concerns the interpretation of the model results. The re-evaluation and improvement of the content in an earlier phase resulted in an integrated design process in which the definitive regression model of this research was constructed. Results and conclusions The Research shows a positive rental premium for energy-efficient office buildings. The estimates of the predictive model indicate a rent price premium of 8.4% for energy efficient office buildings (label A-C) versus energy inefficient office buildings (label D-G). The research has also shown that different rental premiums are paid for different energy labels. The regression shows that when controlling for all other variables related to the macro, meso and micro levels, tenants are willing to pay substantially higher rents for office buildings with a B and or C label than for buildings with energy label A. Furthermore, tenants pay substantially lower rents for buildings with energy label E than for those with label A. No substantial differences have been demonstrated in the rent for the other energy labels. Perhaps, the lack of significance for buildings with a D, F or G label is the result of the small samples size in this research, so significant results are more difficult to achieve. In addition to the usual control of economic, location and building factors in rental premium research, this research has added a control level of building and facade aesthetic features. This control was missing in almost all comparable studies. If the control for aesthetic building and facade features is left out of consideration, the rental premium for energy-efficient office building would have been 13.5%, about 5% higher than the proven rent price premium of 8.4%. The addition of the level of control with regard to aesthetic building and facades features therefore has a significant effect on the rental price premium. This result was expected. The effect of energy efficiency on the rental price of office buildings is positive, but this is weaker than in previous studies because the effect of energy efficiency is better isolated through the extensive control of aesthetic building and facade features and was therefore determined more precisely.