2024-08-30 15:03:13
The Breuninger department store is as much a part of Stuttgart as the Mineralwasser or the Tagblatt Gallery. Rolex watches and Louis Vuitton accessories are on display in the large shops in the Dorotheenquartier. Sellers await those returning from vacation in mid-summer temperatures. Petra and Wolfgang who just took each other to an Aperol Spritz wine spritzer break at “Eduards”, the department store’s cocktail bar: a holiday in the home town.
But the mood is clouded. Visitors have certainly read reports about the possible sale of the department store, which was founded in 1878 and has six branches in Baden-Württemberg and another seven in other federal states and abroad. Wolfgang, 65, said: “That doesn’t sound like culture, it sounds more like greed. “The Breuninger is an institution in Stuttgart, it is located in the last stable area in the city center,” said Petra. “For many people, the city is unfortunately a stop on the way home from work.”
In the Champagne bar, arched over by the glass dome of the department store, you can learn to love and hate Stuttgart: Love because wealth and wealth are well contained here in a Swabian-pietist way; There is only one luxury department store in Stuttgart and there is no Maximilianstrasse. And at the same time, you learn to hate Stuttgart here, because the carelessness with which the “rich kids” drive up here in the Porsche Taycan from the best half height to satisfy their consumer instinct can still be confusing in the world of war and disaster.
“Heart of Stuttgart retail”
For the city of Stuttgart, the department store is definitely an anchor of social and economic stability. Mayor Frank Nopper (CDU) talks about “the heart of Stuttgart retail”. If the American company Amazon buys Breuninger, the city will have to ignore a significant amount of business income tax. The agency responsible for downtown marketing said Breuninger was a “great actor” of special importance.
After the Internet-related decline of many traditional shops and department stores, especially on Königstrasse, and the apparent neglect not only there, there remains little of long-established retail anyway. When the city discussed how to make the downtown important 20 years ago, local politicians had few ideas. It was Breuninger’s then director Willem van Agtmael who planned the decision for today’s Dorotheenquartier with the urban development plan “Da Vinci”, which enabled the continued existence of the department store.
“The question is where to go now”
Locally, Tesla moved out and made room for Porsche again, or a bartender converted a cocktail bar into a bar. In general, however, the area, in which many luxury brands and the Ministry of Transport and Social Affairs live, revives the city center. Agtmael successfully modernized the traditional Swabian department store 20 years ago. “No one wants an average shirt at an average price in an average environment anymore,” he said, turning Breuninger into a luxury department store. The company succeeded with this strategy and its Internet shipping company.
Julius sits at the Champagne bar and sips from the Champagne glass. He did not want to say whether it was “Ruinart Blanc de Blancs” – a glass for 26 euros – but he thought that Stuttgart would be a different city without Breuninger: “My grandparents and parents already shopped here, maybe As a customer, you don’t notice anything about sales houses. The question is where to go now. “
News hit customers out of the blue. On the floor they were lost in the perfume department of men who are not exactly busy. After an expensive summer vacation, who buys a cashmere jacket from Brunello Cucinelli for 3,200 euros or a Gucci sweater for 980 euros? But the sellers are relaxed, they rely on the German labor law. The days when the company had a missing swimming pool with mineral water on the roof terrace will definitely not come back. They have been completed since 1988.
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