For a while, flowers were sold from the small garage-like building on the market square in Berg am Laim. The house has been empty since the business was closed. It has now been renovated and an ice cream parlor has moved in. As a result, people can now be found more frequently on the green market. So that the rest of the old town center also becomes more lively, the city’s economic department wants to develop a concept – and approach tradespeople.
In addition to the district shop on Baumkirchner Straße, there was a change last year. On the sidewalk there are no longer the clothes racks with cheap clothes that the hairdresser previously sold there in addition to blow-drying, washing, cutting and laying. A new hairdresser has taken over the business. And gave it up again. In August he moves to Garching. Commerzbank on the same street. A sign recently hung on her door: “This branch is closed.” With its service, however, the bank is still there for its customers “close to you”. The new address: Ostbahnhof.
A little further around the corner on Kreillerstraße, right next to another barber shop, the shisha shop has closed. There is now a cosmetic studio there. On the opposite side of the street, with a view of the municipal daycare center and the elementary school in the old Rossmann, the shop windows are also empty. A few weeks ago the fronts were replaced, light leather sofas were balanced into the building. Just like next door. In contrast to the corner house, a shop has already moved in. The old perfumery is now a barbershop. If you walk around the block, you will notice even more empty ground floors. A one-story makeshift building with a real estate developer poster on the wall is falling into disrepair. The pharmacy next door almost looks like it’s on the summer break. In reality it is closed.
Lots of cars, few customers: on the corner of Kreillerstrasse and Baumkirchner Strasse, retailers have a hard time.
(Photo: Alessandra Schellnegger)
The tour confirms the feeling: something is happening in the mountain at the Laimer center and then it is not. Kreillerstraße, which eventually becomes Wasserburger Landstraße, divides the historical center in two halves as a large corridor. It was created at a time when the premise of modern urban planning was “car-friendly”. In Berg am Laim it cut up a quarter and is still paralyzing the revival of the local economy today. Who can enjoy a cup of coffee and relax on the narrow pavement while the commuter traffic rushes by on a four-lane road?
The Berg am Laim district committee would like to see a well-planned approach and help from the economic department so that shops don’t open all the time, only to close again shortly afterwards. A round table with local tradespeople will discuss how the dealers can be supported. In addition, the CSU and FDP have jointly suggested that a concept be drawn up so that the traders benefit from money from the “Education, Economy, Work in the Neighborhood” (BIWAQ) program.
The federal program uses funds from the European Social Fund to promote the local economy in disadvantaged city districts. It is intended as a supplement to the urban renewal measures “Socially Integrative City”, meanwhile “Social Cohesion”, through which several districts have been upgraded since 1976. The redevelopment area Innsbrucker Ring / Baumkirchner Straße in Ramersdorf and Berg am Laim has been part of this funding program since 2005.
According to its own information, the Department for Labor and Economics (RAW) created a so-called retail development concept (EHEK) for the business centers of Berg am Laim, Ramersdorf and Giesing between 2015 and 2018. All quarters are well equipped with supermarkets, but small shops are largely missing. “In order to stabilize the local economy in the three centers, the EHEK therefore essentially recommend an alternative positioning through the development of a neighborhood-specific brand identity,” the lecture stated.
Even the public bookcase and the maypole on the Green Market don’t tear it out: there is little life in the old town center of Berg am Laim.
(Photo: Alessandra Schellnegger)
For Berg am Laim, the studies have shown that new businesses would have to be settled in order to make the area more attractive. The economic department also offers resident retailers further training and advice on digitization and shop design. The Christmas shop window painting, which can still be seen on some fronts, was also initiated as part of the BIWAQ program. In addition, there is an audio walk through the town center. In the future, a shopping guide for Berg am Laim will also be created and a business consultation hour will be introduced, according to the economic department.
Despite these efforts, the economic department admits that vacancies can hardly be prevented with this. A “large-scale interim use offensive” is therefore to start in autumn. For three months, empty spaces are used in different ways in order to make the business center livelier. “These should be small craft businesses, artists or creative workers who move into the empty rooms,” says Tina Zoch, who oversees the project in Berg am Laim for the Munich Society for Urban Renewal (MGS). There is still a lot of free space and gaps to be filled in the neighborhood, and that needs to be made even more aware. Such pop-up solutions are a good opportunity for traders to try out a new location.
In Berg am Laim, the MGS wants to try to break down inhibitions in the economy, but also on the part of the landlords, through creative solutions and “multiple uses”. It could be that something is sold in a shop in the morning and yoga lessons are offered there in the evening. A round table should take place, perhaps in August, so that as many actors as possible in the district participate.