SNCF is France’s second-largest property owner. What is the role of SNCF’s real estate department? Managing 30,000 hectares of land, excluding rail infrastructure and stations, and 7.7 million square meters of office space. But it is also a partner for local authorities seeking to develop land that is no longer required for railway operations.

Reflecting its rich history, SNCF Group's property portfolio covers real estate throughout France, from urban locations – often in city centers – to rural areas. These properties are often unique for being embedded in the railway operating environment, with a single plot of land potentially owned by several Group companies. SNCF Immobilier coordinates these different owners in the framework of projects to develop land that is no longer required for railway operations. In this way, we help local authorities with the design and implementation of their urban development projects, including for housing, tertiary or commercial activities and renaturation projects, drawing largely on the expertise of our subsidiaries: Espaces Ferroviaires, the developer and planner, and the social landlord, ICF Habitat.

The challenges taken up by SNCF Immobilier in the regions and cities

SNCF Immobilier is also contributing to reindustrialization at local and regional levels by selling land that has already been developed for new industrial projects, as at Mohon, near Charleville-Mézières (Ardennes), where locomotive repair workshops will make way for a manufacturer of special wagons.

For several years now, SNCF Immobilier has been actively involved in installing solar power plants on vacant railway land and on the roofs of its buildings as part of an approach that was reinforced by the creation of the renewable energy subsidiary, SNCF Renouvelables, in 2023. Its aim is to generate peak photovoltaic capacity of 1,000 megawatts by 2030, equivalent to 20% of SNCF Group's electricity consumption.

In the urban context, SNCF Immobilier is building the city of tomorrow in line with environmental imperatives, which are more important than ever: restrained land use, energy sobriety, low-carbon construction, environmental renaturation and biodiversity conservation. At a time when land resources are becoming increasingly scarce and demand for housing continues to rise, SNCF Immobilier also pledged to the French government in 2021 that it would dispose of railway land no longer required for operations, in order to enable local authorities to build 15,000 to 20,000 homes, with 30% as subsidized housing, by 2025.

 

Learn more: SNCF Immobilier