The operators of shopping malls promise that shopping should be an experience. “With the Schwanthalerhöhe Forum, we are bringing the heart of the Westend back to life,” said Harald Ortner, Managing Director of the Hanseatic Support and Investment Company (HBB), which owns the forum, at the start in summer 2019. His company put 240 million euros into the conversion. 90 shops and restaurants on 25,000 square meters, plus 1,000 parking spaces, are intended to lure customers to the concrete mountains above the Theresienwiese.
Today, the question is whether the center management managed to breathe life into the unsightly block from the 1970s. A walk on any working day shows that there is a lot going on, especially on the ground floor, young people in small groups, mothers with prams, employees having a coffee break. In the evenings, the two new restaurants, the Steakhouse Churrascaria and the Kawaru with its Japanese cuisine, are full of guests. But in the basement and even more so on the first floor it looks bleak: deserted corridors, taped up shop windows, pale light.
A striking number of shops are currently empty. Sporting goods retailer Decathlon recently closed its doors.
(Photo: Alessandra Schellnegger)
There is plenty of vacant retail space with the shutters down on the three floors. “We’re packing our bags,” says a poster on the door where Decathlon used to be. The sporting goods retailer recently closed its branch in the Forum. “We are already well positioned in the greater Munich area with the surrounding branches,” says a spokeswoman, adding that there are three of them in Munich alone and a total of twelve in Bavaria. “The Schwanthalerhöhe branch is comparatively small at 1,400 square meters and offers little test space for our sports-loving customers,” she says.
The selection of shops in the forum offers only a few surprises and a lot that is familiar: the fashion chain H&M, the discounter Lidl and a drugstore branch of dm have rented large areas. As a local supplier, they are intended to attract traffic to the shopping center. In addition, there are low-cost suppliers such as Woolworth with all kinds of articles at “top prices” and Kik (“Our customers can get everything they need from socks to hats for less than 30 euros”). The mix also includes a bookseller, a pharmacy, a toy store and an organic supermarket.
In June 2015, HBB Managing Director Harald Ortner presented the new investor’s plans for the complex on the edge of Theresienwiese. It will be four years before the forum opens.
(Photo: Florian Peljak)
How successful can a shopping center be that follows this classic concept? “We didn’t exactly have the ideal time to start in 2019,” says HBB Managing Director Ortner today. “And then there was Corona. As you saw correctly, there is something to be done. Our goal is of course to have the areas full, we are working on that.” Some things have already changed, says Ortner, and refers to the Churascerria with its 180 seats, “which are almost always gone even during the week”.
Despite all the changes, one should not overlook the fact that there are also many tenants who have been there from the start. Ortner mentions Weißglut as an example. The light and airy concept store by Stefan and Jessica Kiefer offers home accessories, ceramic tableware, fashion and more. “The two know how to address people so that they become regular customers,” says Ortner. The concept is individual – and tailored to the Munich clientele. “We still have a few more shops of this kind that are on the right track,” says the managing director, who keeps an eye on the sales development of his tenants from Hamburg. “With others, you have to think about replacing them in the long term.” That is not unusual, there are always tenants who have nothing to do with a certain location.
Heidi Nickel, owner of the Isar Kollektiv shop, has found her regular customers in the Schwanthalerhöhe forum. A few more shops with beautiful things couldn’t hurt, she thinks.
(Photo: Alessandra Schellnegger)
One of the Munich originals in the forum is Heidi Nickel’s small shop. In the Isar collective there is mainly regional design from Bavaria: jewelry, small leather goods, knitwear, bags, children’s stuff. In the immediate vicinity are Weißglut and the Zeiss Vision Center, a modern optician with futuristic furnishings in white and glass. “It was a shock for us that Decathlon was going,” says Nickel, after all, shops like hers benefit from the walk-in customers that such chain stores attract. “I would like something of a higher quality to come in,” says the shop owner. “It would be nice if there were more shops with a loving range that stimulate each other.”
The Dear Goods pop-up store is empty. The outlet for sustainable fashion has moved but stayed in the area.
(Photo: Alessandra Schellnegger)
One of those stores recently moved out: a Dear Goods branch; the company specializes in sustainable fashion. She had moved to the Forum with a pop-up store, but the temporary quarter lasted longer than planned. A poster many meters high is still stuck to the shop window, on which managing director Nicole Noli explains why she decided to go to the forum: “Honestly? The great location between Theresienwiese and Westend”, can be read there. The district combines “urbanity and rustic cosiness”. From teenagers to pensioners, the clientele was very diverse. Now she has to walk a few streets further.
“I didn’t want to stay permanently, it was never my idea,” says Noli. “Dear Goods can be found further in the West End, on Franziska-Bilek-Weg.” For her fair fashion she needs a shop where she can sell the goods of the last seasons. Commonly, people call something like this outlet, Noli prefers to speak of “slowlet”. Why the move? “Our shop in the shopping center was a rectangular box with the constant noise of escalators, the opposite of cozy,” says the entrepreneur. “But we stand for that living room feeling and want to appeal to all of our customers’ senses when shopping, so it’s nicer if you can design the place individually.” She can also freely decide on the opening hours without the center management having a say.
View over three floors into the basement: the gastronomic offer and places to relax are in demand.
(Photo: Alessandra Schellnegger)
The forum is also to be partially realigned. Ortner wants to create new offers for leisure and young families on the upper floor, he doesn’t get any more specific. That’s why he would also like to see the Children’s and Youth Museum in the Forum, which will lose its home at the main train station. Ortner has been negotiating with the culture department for years. Now, however, there is a competing offer that the city council can hardly refuse: In the former construction center Riem there are rooms that are ideally suited for exhibitions and are significantly cheaper than the shopping center, says a spokeswoman for the culture department. The city council is expected to deal with the location issue at the end of March.
And what’s next in the forum? “We would love to continue to expand the local color that we have with white heat,” says HBB Managing Director Ortner. “We talk to well-known Munich companies about our leisure activities.”