The city is facing new problems with the planned new building of the wholesale market hall by an investor: After the Büschl group of companies from Grünwald took over the previous negotiating partner, the company “Umschlagzentrum Großmarkt München” (UGM), the question is obviously whether the construction project should be awarded must be tendered across the EU – which could mean a restart and a delay well beyond the previous target of completion in 2030. This emerges from a draft resolution for the municipal committee on Thursday.
“The tension between European public procurement law, municipal law and the assumptions that have been made to date have resulted in complex legal issues as a result of the change within the major shareholders of UGM,” writes municipal officer Kristina Frank. These have not yet been finally clarified. That’s why she will bring in a second part of the draft resolution at the upcoming general meeting on April 27, in which “information on legal issues will be provided and concrete recommendations for action will be proposed to the city council”.
Originally, offices on the roof were supposed to make the project profitable
With the submission, Frank is at least partially complying with an ultimatum from Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD) at the end of October. At the time, he had called for “reliable statements” by the end of the first quarter of 2022 on how the investor project, which has been stalled since spring 2020, should continue. The city had previously decided to hand over a municipal plot of land on the site with heritable building rights to UGM, which has already rented large areas in the wholesale market. The UGM was planning a new building for the wholesale market hall, on top of which an office complex was to be built. Its rental should have made the project profitable. Shortly after Reiter’s ultimatum, it became known that the Büschl Group would buy UGM and throw the previous plans overboard. She announced that she would also build housing above the wholesale market hall. It was not previously known that this project could be in danger due to EU regulations.
But even if the city should stick to the partnership with Büschl/UGM, there are also some fundamental questions, as municipal officer Frank points out. The main problem is the tight time frame. Actually, the new building should go into operation in the early 1930s. The current halls are so dilapidated that the city will have to spend 30 million euros by 2024 alone to obtain the operating permit. The planning for building maintenance does not extend beyond 2030.
Only eight years until completion – that also raises doubts in the city council
Frank sees four “project blocks” for the new building that have to be completed: new leasehold negotiations with the investor, the creation of the necessary building rights through a multi-year development plan process, the conclusion of an urban development contract and the construction phase. She brings into play that these blocks are “parallelized” “if this is possible within the scope of the technical possibilities” of the municipal department and the planning department, which is responsible for building law. According to information from the planning department, it is also still unclear to what extent living space above the wholesale market hall is possible at all, partly because of the noise from delivery traffic.
There are also doubts in the city council as to whether all of this can work out: “We have eight years until the planned completion, that’s close,” says Kathrin Abele, deputy leader of the SPD/Volt parliamentary group. But at least something is finally progressing, “the ultimatum from the mayor wasn’t so bad for that.”