The character of the cherry site is still dominated by unattractive warehouses with an exposed aggregate concrete look. But the days of these commercial buildings are numbered. In just a few months, by the middle of next year, says Wolfgang Bogner, the excavators are supposed to start rolling – to clear the construction site for Allach-Untermenzing’s largest new quarter. The managing director of the “Eckpillar Immobilien-Gruppe”, which acquired the 120,000 square meter site in the north-west of Munich as a joint venture with the Büschl group of companies in 2015 and now operates as “Allpg Immobiliengesellschaft”, is confident that “at the end of 2023, beginning of 2024 with to be able to start the first phase of construction”.
“We are developing the area in three stages from east to west, from the railway line,” Bogner recently told Allach’s local politicians. The other sections are then to follow every two years, so that the quarter will be completed in six years – “if we are sporty on the road”.
According to this, the six-storey blocks, which are intended to shield the train noise, are the first to be built, followed by seven- to nine-storey blocks and the construction of the district square in the heart of the new settlement. The three or four-storey buildings in the south-west, in the immediate vicinity of the existing buildings with single-family houses and semi-detached houses, are the last to be built.
1,240 apartments for around 3,000 people are being created on the former site of the Theodor Kirsch & Sons steam sawmill, between Kirschstrasse, Esmarchstrasse, Hintermeierstrasse and Allacher Strasse and the Munich-Ingolstadt railway line. In addition, there is a primary school, four day care centers with a total of 13 kindergarten and ten crèche groups, a 250 square meter neighborhood meeting place, retail, café and lots of greenery.
The citizens’ representatives want many large trees, a body of water and a boule alley
The landscape park alone is the size of two and a half soccer fields. The citizens’ representatives expressly welcome the fact that the paved area will be unsealed with this project. They want as many areas of nutrient-poor grassland as possible and numerous large trees for the site. And on the district square a water area, a drinking fountain, a boule alley and maybe table tennis tables. They also give a positive assessment of the planning of a cycle path along the railway line as a direct connection between the Allach and Untermenzing S-Bahn stations.
But the expected traffic gives them stomach ache. Bogner has announced that it intends to have the material produced during the clearing of the construction site removed by truck in the direction of Ludwigsfelder Strasse. “That sounds scary to me,” said the head of the committee, Pascal Fuckerieder (SPD), at the presentation. The streets around the new district are narrow, and the neighbors are already groaning under the heavy traffic. According to Bogner, a logistics concept is currently being developed. As soon as it is available, the plan will be presented to the district committee.
Local experts are particularly worried about the underpass on Allacher Straße. This bottleneck is “a neuralgic point” and particularly dangerous for cyclists because of the narrowness, Fuckerieder explained to the representatives of the planning and mobility department.
“You will have more and more complaints from the population”
Jonas Wurtz from the mobility department had previously emphasized that, according to city calculations, only 500 more trips than before should take place in the future – which is “very, very little” for such a construction project. And Nicky Hager from the responsible police station in Moosach added that this is not an accident black spot and “the majority of people stick to the speed limit”. But the experiences of the local residents are different. “You will,” predicted Fritz Schneller (SPD), “have a rude awakening and complaints from the population over and over again if you don’t come up with anything.”
From a local political point of view, one possibility that has been discussed in the district for more than 20 years could be the construction of a second tube for pedestrians next to the previous underpass. The district representatives then want the pavement freed up in this way to be added to the roadway. The fact that Jonas Wurtz from the mobility department sees “no great chance of realization” for this variant does not deter the citizens’ representatives, on the contrary: they call for the planning scope to be increased in order to be able to integrate the expansion of the Allach Tunnel into the project.
In any case, mobility stations are already planned on the cherry site, the parking space key has been reduced to 0.8 parking spaces per apartment, more the district committee considers “absolutely unacceptable”. And a bus is also to drive through the district along Elly-Staegmeyr-Strasse. However, the one bus stop that has been planned so far is not enough for the citizens’ representatives, “you need at least two”. It is unclear which route the bus will take on the way to the settlement and afterwards, the exact routing is still pending. The local politicians also consider it “absolutely necessary” to connect the district to the subway network – knowing full well that this demand is still utopian at the moment.