The Swiss pharmaceutical company rents all of the office space in the historic complex on Neuhauser Strasse, which the Signa Group is renovating from René Benko. The rent is said to be record-breaking.
First major tenant for the Alte Akademie: the Basel pharmaceutical company Novartis will set up a headquarters in Munich’s pedestrian zone for its German subsidiary. “A long-term lease for 9,350 square meters of office space” has been concluded with the company, announced the real estate division of the Signa group, which is backed by the Austrian entrepreneur René Benko, in a press release on Tuesday. “With this deal, all of the office space has been taken long before the traditional property is completed,” says Tobias Sauerbier, Managing Director of Signa Real Estate. Signa does not provide any information about the amount of the rent. From the Munich real estate industry it is said that Novartis pays around 50 euros per square meter – that would make this deal in combination with the size of the space unique in Munich. The average price for new office rentals in the city center is around 40 euros, while a price of 50 euros has only been paid for much smaller spaces so far.
Signa took over the listed complex of the Old Academy in 2013 with heritable building rights over 65 years from the Free State. A comprehensive renovation is currently underway and completion is planned for 2023. In the end, in addition to the office space, which offers space for around 500 workplaces, 60 rental apartments as well as space for retail and gastronomy are to be created. In terms of retail space, however, Signa has to deal with the current trend that rents in downtown Munich are falling significantly. Signa left a request unanswered.
Novartis sees a new branch in Munich as “a very good addition to our Nuremberg headquarters”. The city is convincing “with an attractive job market”. In addition, the new office gives you even more personal access to the particularly interesting medical cluster in and around Munich. This makes it easier to intensify the dialogue with local partners.
In Germany, Novartis employs around 7,000 people at ten locations, around 1,000 of them in Nuremberg. The company’s aim is to “establish two equally strong locations in Nuremberg and Munich” in the future. This is to begin in January in an interim building, before Novartis will move into the Alte Akademie in 2024 after the construction work has been completed. The pharmaceutical company enables its employees to freely choose their place of work and to decide for themselves when they come together in the offices. In order for this to work in practice, offices were selected in a central city-center location and at the same time near the train station.