There may be a new buyer for the former Commerzbank headquarters on Leopoldstrasse – which could soon be transformed into an urban refugee accommodation: After the deal originally intended with the Frankfurt investment company Headstream fell through, Commerz Real AG, the real estate division of Commerzbank, is now set to do so , buy the office complex with 12,800 square meters of floor space.
This emerges from investor information from the real estate fund CFB 53, which previously operated as the owner of the property. The letter, whose contents the Real estate newspaper first reported, is available to the SZ. What is curious is that the fund was once launched by Commerz Real itself. So the parent company is essentially buying the property from its own baby.
According to the letter, a subsidiary of Commerz Real is offering a purchase price of 11.2 million euros for the property with the address Erwin-von-Kreibig-Straße 4-6, clearly located at the intersection of Leopoldstraße and Schenkendorfstraße. However, this price could receive a significant surcharge of five million euros, namely “if a rental agreement is concluded with the city of Munich”.
The property, which in its current state is hardly rentable as an office building, has been offered to the city to accommodate refugees. The social department responsible for this confirmed at the end of February that the municipal department responsible for urban real estate transactions was conducting preliminary negotiations on a possible rental agreement. If these go well, the city council would have to take the project into consideration. If he ultimately decided to rent, renovation work would be necessary.
Fund management and buyers want to conclude a rental agreement with the city
The letter to investors from mid-March states that the fund management, together with the buyer, will now “continue discussions with the city of Munich and work to ensure that a rental agreement can be concluded as quickly as possible,” thus reducing the purchase price by five million euros rise.
In response to a query about the current status, the municipal department explains that they “basically do not provide any information about any property negotiations (…) for reasons of confidentiality.” The social affairs department says that there are currently no concrete plans to refer the matter to the city council.
Commerzbank itself used the building for 30 years, and last year it moved to the new “Mark” office building on Landsberger Straße. The fund that currently owns the building is in severe economic turmoil. At the beginning, in 1993, the investment volume was 64 million euros, of which there is not much left. The sale now being prepared is an emergency sale. Some investors want to get money back in court.