Co-location tier nomenclature
The co-location index assigns each cluster to one of four tiers based on the categorical composition of its anchor and secondary stores and on the cluster's position within its national population catchment. The tier labels visible on the map — Regional, District, Local, Fringe — follow the International Council of Shopping Centres (ICSC) retail property hierarchy, which is used by property developers, planners, and retail analysts across the North American and European markets the platform covers. The qualifying gates are defined in the V3 catchment ranking methodology and the underlying scoring logic in the co-location ranking system.
What Each Tier Means
| Tier | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Regional | A nationally significant co-location node. Contains both a hypermarket-format anchor and a warehouse club or lifestyle anchor, is in the top decile of its country by primary catchment population, and has a regionally classified hospital within the civic ring. The highest tier. |
| 2 | District | A sub-regional trade-area node. Contains a hypermarket and a hardware or warehouse anchor, is in the top quartile of its country by primary catchment population, and has hospital access within the civic ring. |
| 3 | Local | A hardware or wholesale hub with community-level civic support. Contains at least one hardware or warehouse anchor, is in the top half of its country by primary catchment population, and has any hospital within the civic ring. |
| 4 | Fringe | Below threshold on one or more required gates. A commercial cluster with retail co-tenancy but insufficient catchment reach, composition, or civic support to qualify for Local or above. |
Composition Chips
Each cluster carries a composition descriptor displayed below the tier badge. The descriptor names the anchor classes present, separated by "+": for example, "Hypermarket + Hardware + Warehouse" or "Lifestyle + Hypermarket". The four anchor classes are Hypermarket (general-merchandise stores: Walmart, Target, Mercadona, Tesco, Sainsbury's), Lifestyle (large-format home and furnishings: IKEA), Hardware (home improvement: Home Depot, Lowe's, Leroy Merlin), and Warehouse (membership warehouse clubs: Costco, Sam's Club, Makro). The full chain-to-family mapping is documented in the retail brand family taxonomy.
Naming History
The tier labels have been renamed twice since the platform launched.
First rename (May 2026): The original numeric labels (T3 Full Complement, T2 Retail Anchor, T0 Commercial Node, and variants) were replaced with plain-English nouns: Prime, Strong (Retail), Strong (Bulk), Strong (Hub), Core (Hyper), Core (Hardware), Core (Wholesale), Emerging. This resolved two readability failures: "+" ambiguity in compound descriptors, and the cognitive cost of mapping a tier number to a quality rank.
Second rename (May 2026): The plain-English labels were replaced with the ICSC hierarchy: Regional, District, Local, Fringe. The motivation was alignment with an internationally recognised nomenclature that carries meaning without requiring platform-specific context. A planner who opens the map without reading documentation knows what "Regional" means; "Prime" required learning.
Correction (2026-08-02), partially resolved (2026-08-24): two defects were flagged. (1) The real ICSC shopping-center hierarchy is Neighborhood/Community/ Regional/Super Regional — it has no "District," "Local," or "Fringe" tier; only "Regional" is a genuine ICSC term. This point stands and is not resolved here; the platform's own naming choice, not this article's description of it, is the source of the imprecision. (2) This article's claim that the T1/T2/T3 numeric scheme was retired platform-wide is now confirmed accurate against the system currently live at gis.woodfinegroup.com: the Regional/District/ Local/Fringe tiers below are the current, live system. Two of the three sibling articles that previously contradicted this — [[gis-cluster-scoring-glossary| gis-cluster-scoring-glossary]] and Retail co-location ranking system — have been corrected to match (2026-08-24). co-location-tiering-scoring still presents a separate DBSCAN-based T1/T2/T3 system as current and has not yet been reconciled — flagged, not resolved for that one remaining article.
The Spanish-language equivalents are: Regional, Distrital, Local, Marginal.
What Changed and What Did Not
The second rename coincided with a change in how tiers are assigned. Previously, tiers were assigned by a composite score combining a base score with count, diversity, civic-depth, and overlap-penalty bonuses. Under the current system, tiers are assigned by binary gates: composition + national catchment rank + civic classification + spatial overlap limit. The gate definitions are described in the catchment ranking methodology document.
The tier names changed from the plain-English labels to the ICSC labels. The tier assignment method changed from score-threshold to predicate-gate. Both changes shipped together.
Reading Tier Colours on the Map
When a user selects a cluster on the map, the tier name displays as a large coloured badge. Below the badge, a muted composition chip names the anchor classes present.
The badge colour encodes the hierarchy: dark navy for Regional, indigo for District, slate for Local, light grey for Fringe.