More noisy manufacturing industry, but fewer offices or hotel rooms: That is what a large majority of the city council wants for a large new construction project in the north of Munich. The Munich real estate company Hammer AG is planning a commercial quarter on a 5.6-hectare site on the Frankfurter Ring, including two high-rise buildings that can be taller than 80 meters, mostly for office use. This requires a new development plan for the area not far from the access road to the A9. The plenary assembly of the city council passed the resolution for this in its most recent meeting, together with a framework plan for the entire commercial zone on the Frankfurter Ring. A 167-hectare area that extends to the old Knorr- Bremse site in the west and is bordered by the Deutsche Bahn Nordring in the north.
The green-red town hall coalition pushed through an amendment that also affects the future new development plan for the Hammer site. Accordingly, in the upcoming urban and landscape planning competition, the extent to which the proportion of the often noisy manufacturing industry can be increased beyond the originally planned proportion of 25 percent of the total floor area is to be worked out. “The site is ideal for manufacturing because there is a lot of traffic noise around it anyway,” says SPD city councilor Simone Burger. And, according to the majority of the city council, they also want to keep this branch of industry in Munich. ÖDP/Munich-List, Die Linke/Die Party and AfD voted against this change, but they reject the entire Frankfurter-Ring project in its current version.
The framework plan for the Frankfurter Ring provides that it should primarily remain a commercial location. Accordingly, the entire area will be divided into four zones, which are to develop different profiles based on the previous structure. In some cases – which was also the case for Green-Red in the General Assembly – the city planning should examine whether more living space can be created than previously planned. The eastern part in particular should continue to be home to noisy trades. The property of Hammer AG is also located there, for which the over-planning is now becoming more concrete.
A precision forge for automotive gears and axles was previously located on the site, with a floor area of 29,000 square meters. These buildings will be demolished, except for a listed former administration building of the Bayerisches Leichtmetallwerk founded in 1925 at Frankfurter Ring 227. According to information from the land registry, Hammer AG took over the property in two purchases in 2018 for a total of almost 70 million euros, with the price “certain circumstances” could still increase. This could mean, for example, an increase in the value of the property through the multiplication of building rights, which the new development plan would create.
Developer reacts cautiously to the ideas of the city council
Hammer AG does not provide any information on the purchase price, but speaks of investment costs for the entire project “in the high nine-digit range”. It is already active with larger commercial buildings in the north of Munich. However, this project is likely to be the largest for the company to date. A side note on the matter is that the CSU city councilor Hans Hammer is behind the company, but he emphasizes separating his professional activity in the real estate industry from his political work in the city council. During the debate and the vote in the city council, he would normally have left the room, which was not necessary in this case because Hammer was on vacation.
Key data for the Hammer project are given in the draft decision by the city planning officer, Elisabeth Merk. According to this, a total floor area of around 160,000 square meters is to be created (the previous automotive supplier only had 29,000 square meters). In the new development area, around 90,000 square meters were planned for offices, 40,000 square meters for manufacturing industry, plus 15,000 square meters of hotel space and up to 15,000 square meters for public and cultural use. A neighborhood park of at least 6,000 square meters is also required.
Hammer AG reacts reservedly to the city council’s order to increase the proportion of manufacturing industry. A spokeswoman explains that the company is “open to the idea,” but considers it “difficult” to implement because there are many requirements for the design of the open spaces.
Green politician Paul Bickelbacher, who is responsible for the topic for the largest city council group, says he is curious to see how the call for tenders for the competition, which is to take place in the next few months, will be formulated. CSU City Councilor Alexander Reissl had already questioned whether so many square meters were really needed for hotels when the topic was discussed in advance in the planning committee. “The 15,000 square meters are quite a block, not 30 or 70 rooms, but probably a few hundred.”