Case Study:
Technical Due Diligence assessment  for large shopping centre complex

This work was commissioned by a private real estate investment specialist. 

This property is a shopping centre which comprised of a supermarket, a shopping mall with approx. 60 retail units, a workshop building with two rental units and a Retail Park building with 5 retail units. There are also some associated offices and storage areas.

The building already has some sustainable features including:

• Photovoltaics on roof of the mall for the domestic hot water (DHW) generation
• Heating boilers and hot water storage tanks for DHW generation connected to solar heat panels on the roof
• Shading of parking area with solar panels
• Charging station for electric vehicles
• Safe pedestrian and barrier-free access to the building
• Sheltered cycle storage

The shopping centre (mall) was assessed against the BREEAM In-Use International scheme and reached the levels Excellent (5 stars) for the Asset and the level Outstanding (6 stars) for the Building Management in 2017.

ES EnviroSustain GmbH was commissioned to conduct a Technical Vendor Due Diligence (TVDD).

The purpose of this Technical Due Diligence assessment is to:

• evaluate the quality of the Property from a technical, infrastructural, architectural and environmental point of view
• identify potential or known technical issues, incompliances and risks, environmental incompliances and liabilities at the subject site.

The Technical Vendor Due Diligence process consists of:

• Assessment of the building and its building services during a site visit
• Documents made available for review

Once this assessment has been made, the report sets out our findings, issues detected, recommended measures and associated costs for the following:

• Building (including structure, building envelope and interior and exterior areas)
• Building services (e.g. heating, cooling and building ventilation)
• Maintenance and inspection
• Warranties
• Legal conformity (e.g. building permits, fire safety, accessibility)
• Sustainability (EPCs and green building certification)
• Documentation (including permits, warranties etc.)
• Environment (e.g. contaminated land, hazardous materials)
  

The TDD process did not identify any critical issues with the building, however recommendations were made for non-critical improvements. These included:

• General upkeep of the façade of the building
• Updates and repairs to car parking areas
• Repairs and updates of the CCTV security system
• Change of heating strategy and removal of heating plants which have reached the end of their useful life
• Replacement of sprinkler system in the shopping centre as current system has reached the end of useful life