Wednesday, 2 September 2026
Digital twin technology is becoming part of day-to-day shopping centre management in Poland, with Nhood using its digital property platform across 14 Ceetrus-owned assets covering approximately 200,000 sqm.
The technology brings together information that would traditionally be distributed across building plans, technical records, photographs, leasing databases and other management systems. Nhood’s implementation combines three-dimensional building models with tenant information, technical equipment records and 360-degree imagery, giving property teams a common digital view of individual assets.
For shopping centre owners, one of the potential advantages is the ability to connect physical information about a property with operational and commercial data. Instead of examining a building’s layout separately from leasing information, management teams can use the platform to understand how individual units are occupied and how different areas of the property are being used.
The system also supports technical management. Users can examine floor plans and sections, move from an overview of a property to individual rooms, take measurements and identify equipment located within particular areas. This can reduce the need to search through multiple sets of drawings and documentation when planning maintenance, refurbishment or investment works.
Nhood has also incorporated leasing and financial information into the platform. Individual premises can be organised according to their function or tenant category, allowing leasing and asset-management teams to assess the composition of a shopping centre alongside its physical layout.
This integration is potentially significant for existing retail properties, where changes to tenant requirements increasingly require landlords to understand not only the commercial terms of a lease but also the technical implications of dividing, combining or adapting space.
Jacek Bendyk, Technical Leader at Nhood Poland, said consolidating previously fragmented building information allows teams to work from a more consistent picture of each property. According to Nhood, this can make planning maintenance, refurbishment and capital expenditure more efficient.
The Polish implementation currently covers 14 Ceetrus properties managed by Nhood, with assets located across markets including Gdańsk, Rumia, Bydgoszcz, Poznań, Piaseczno, Warsaw, Białystok, Rzeszów, Kraków, Bielsko-Biała, Mikołów and Żory. Together, the properties represent around 200,000 sqm.
The technology has already been introduced on a substantially larger scale elsewhere in Europe. Nhood reports another 91 locations using the system outside Poland, including 57 properties in France, 22 in Spain, nine in Romania and two in Portugal, as well as a deployment in Luxembourg.
The expansion of digital twins into operational property management represents a shift from their more familiar role in design and construction. For existing commercial buildings, their value increasingly lies in creating a common information environment that can support decisions throughout the asset’s operating life.
For shopping centres in particular, where landlords continuously manage tenant changes, technical installations, refurbishment programmes and capital expenditure, connecting these different layers of information could become increasingly useful. The larger question will be whether owners can translate improved access to property data into measurable reductions in operating costs, faster leasing decisions and better allocation of investment capital.
