The current market conditions in the retail sector are rapidly changing. This makes it hard for retail areas to conform to consumer needs. This is especially the case for challenged inner cities that are trying to cope with these changes for the physical demand of retail space. This constant market change and current state of retail areas desperately need a new approach that offers a solution. In this research a solution is sought by deploying placemaking. The aim of the research is to investigate possible factors that contribute to the overall success of a project aiming to deal with these everchanging retail areas. This results in the following research question: Which critical success factors of placemaking contribute to the success of a challenged inner city? The research shows that within the 37 factors that were analysed, a total of 14 were labelled as critical for successIn addition to these findings, the research is summarized in a final model that has been developed in order to implement the research findings in practice.