From the outside everything looks the same as always. Above the front door, posters advertise the shows Sister Act and Something Rotten, a schedule of entertainment. On Saturday evening there are people with white wine glasses waiting for the show to start, just like it always started. But the impression in front of the “English Theater” is deceptive.
A dispute over the theater has been escalating in Frankfurt for weeks: Can it stay here in the base of the “Gallileo” skyscraper, in the center of the city? Or does it have to move because Commerzbank, which owned the tower for a long time, sold this tower? At the beginning of June, the bank filed an action for eviction with the district court in Frankfurt, claiming that it was in a “non-contractual relationship”. So please dismantle the sets, pack up the props, all the best.
But it is not that easy.
The core of the dispute is about details of a contract from 1999 and different legal opinions. But for a long time it has also been about the value of art in the city. The English Theater is the largest English language theater in continental Europe. If it had to move, where would all the Brexit bankers who moved from the Thames to the Main go, all the youngsters in English classes? Don’t the construction and use of high-rise buildings also impose conditions on those who earn their money in them? And so to Commerzbank, whose reputation is also at stake in this dispute. After years of infirmity, the partially state-owned bank has just painstakingly polished its image – as a pragmatic doer bank, and by no means does it want to be seen as the home of legal goofs and dodges.
The lease expires, the tower is to be renovated – so the theater has to go
The Gallileo Tower is located between the station district and the banking district, to put it bluntly, between brothels and underground car park exits. When the tower was built in 1999, the city negotiated a lease for the theater with the client at the time, Dresdner Bank. The plan: The theater should enliven the area, it should be a place where people meet and talk about more than sales figures. That’s what the city’s head of planning at the time said. Dresdner Bank then merged with Commerzbank, which sold the tower to a South Korean investor in 2013, who in turn sold it to a Singapore-based fund called Capitaland in 2018.
With which the drama for the theater took its course. Because Commerzbank’s lease is now expiring and Capitaland wants to renovate the tower, the subtenant, the theater, should also move out. Otherwise, Commerzbank fears that it will be confronted with “considerable financial demands from the building owner”. The 1999 agreement does not oblige Commerzbank or the building owner to make the venue permanently available to the theatre. This obligation expired in 2010. According to this, one or future owners had the right to bring about further public third-party use of the theater areas “at a standard market remuneration”. A warning had been given early on and I very much regret that, despite eight years of lead time, no solution has yet been found. In any case, the costs borne by the bank for the theater space have “cumulated” over the years to almost ten million euros. In fact, the theater has been able to live rent-free for the last few years.
According to the theater, however, it is not about the rent and not about possible compensation. “We don’t want millions, we want the venue,” says director Daniel Nicolai, and that he sees responsibility for this at Commerzbank.
Daniel Nicolai, Artistic Director, stands on the stage of the English Theater Frankfurt.
(Photo: Arne Dedert/picture alliance/dpa)
So while lawyers everywhere are bending over the contract and examining the extent to which permanent use for the theater is stipulated, the owner Capitaland says that as a “responsible” real estate investment manager, they know the value of culturally rich and diverse cities with lively, public appreciate spaces. On the one hand. On the other hand, as a listed company, you also have an obligation to “shareholders and stakeholders”. One is therefore open to all commercial rental offers and welcomes potential tenants “who want to be part of the revived Gallileo”. And yes, they are looking at options for the theater.
Only: Does that sound like the theater has any priority?
In the city’s culture department, of course, they realize that the dispute has long since gone beyond the city limits of Frankfurt. In Wiesbaden, Prime Minister Boris Rhein (CDU) apparently turned to the investor. In Berlin, Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth (Greens) asked Capitaland to return to the negotiating table. In the Financial Times ran for days one writes in the columns of letters to the editor that Frankfurt can sometimes be “a gray place,” and asks which young bankers would come to the city with their families – and not go straight to London – if the only English-speaking theater of all things had to close.
The contract states that the theater is “permanently entitled” to use the rooms
In the case of the city, everyone you speak to points out that they would read the said contract differently. Her reading: The agreement is still valid, the theater “permanently authorized” to use the rooms. Insiders say that this enduring claim should have been transferred to the next owner upon sale. Apparently, the bank failed to write that in the purchase contract at the time, whether on purpose or by mistake. We take note of the fact that the bank is now having this legally examined. And turning to Capitaland: One hopes that the company will recognize “that, as the owner, it also has a responsibility for the local stakeholders in its own interest”.
In addition, it is said that the city of Capitaland also made an offer to talk to make it clear that it wanted the theater in the tower and that it was also prepared to support this, for example by participating in the lease itself. There is currently no equivalent venue in Frankfurt.
In the theater, the play “Now and Then” lasted a good two hours on Saturday and when it was over, the actors had to come forward several times, the hall was clapping for so long. Maybe he clapped longer because it was clear to many that it wasn’t just about this piece, about this evening. In any case, the director remains optimistic, the plan for the new season is set, five new productions, lots of entertainment. They have enough drama.