Stacking uses on one plot only works when each use would stand alone on its own numbers.
Mixed-use has become shorthand for ambition. Too often it hides a residential scheme subsidising retail that no demand study supports.
Test each component separately. If the retail cannot fill at realistic rents without the apartments carrying it, the retail is an amenity, and should be sized as one.
Schemes built this way lease faster and refinance more easily, because lenders can see where the income actually comes from.
