Real estate speculation: Only 25 years left for Hamburger Bahnhof

opinion property speculation

Only 25 years left for Hamburger Bahnhof

Stand: 28.06.2022 | Reading time: 2 minutes

“Clear prospects for the future” for the Hamburger Bahnhof?

Source: picture alliance / Bildagentur-online / Joko

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It was one of the biggest scandals in the art capital when it became known that the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin belonged to an investment company – and that the Rieckhallen were to make way for residential buildings. Now the National Museum of Contemporary Art is said to have been saved. But is that really true?

Dhe game starts again – from the beginning. The Council of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK) in Berlin has agreed that “the federal government will conclude a rental agreement with CA Immo Germany for the Hamburger Bahnhof, which will have a term of 25 years with an option to extend”. The followers of one of the big scandals in the scandal-ridden city of Berlin sit up and take notice: just a rental agreement again?

In 2019, this newspaper reported for the first time that the Hamburger Bahnhof, the national gallery for contemporary art in Berlin, does not belong to the federal government at all, but to the Viennese investment company CA Immo, which at the time wanted to demolish 50 percent of the exhibition space, the Rieckhallen. The lease had expired and no one had noticed. A self-inflicted disaster. In the course of this it became known that the main building was in need of renovation, but was also owned by speculators.

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In 2007, Berlin privatized the state-owned real estate company Vivico, the owner of the site at the time – CA Immo was awarded the contract. All of this happened in months when the major collector Friedrich Christian Flick made his important collection available to the museum and invested around eight million euros in the halls. When the demolition plans became known, he withdrew the works. The museum was on the brink.

Not much has happened since then: the Rieckhallen were said to have been saved by ex-mayor Michael Müller and Senator for Culture Klaus Lederer – but the land exchange deal has not been completed. CA Immo is demanding two more plots of land for the main building, but the former Minister of State for Culture, Monika Grütters, refused. And things got back on track.

As in the past, you now sell a rental contract as a salvation – and pretend that 25 years are a century. “Hamburger Bahnhof once again has clear prospects for the future,” says Hermann Parzinger, who is still President of the SPK. The taxpayer will take over the renovation of the old train station, and from now on they will also transfer rent to CA Immo – and the Viennese can think about what to squeeze out of Berlin next.