The south of Munich is getting a large new city district with three 80-meter high-rise buildings: In its most recent meeting, the city council’s planning committee cleared the way for a private construction project on a property on the corner of Boschetsrieder Straße/Machtlfinger Straße, directly on the subway of the same name. train station. The Munich real estate company Salvis is planning a quarter with 5,000 jobs, 220 apartments, a hotel, shops and space for cultural uses and green spaces on the site, which was formerly used by Siemens and a concrete plant and which is currently home to the “Sugar Mountain” temporary use project .
Overall, the project will have a floor area of around 170,000 square meters. For comparison: Munich’s tallest building, the 146 meter high “Uptown” (also known as the “O2 Tower”), has 50,000 square meters. The public-shy Salvis boss Ulrich Fischer does not want to comment on his project himself, but has a spokesman say that he wants to create “a small factory district in Obersendling”.
It is still unknown which users the quarter will have one day. At the beginning of the year, it was said that the Bayerische Landesbank wanted to move its corporate headquarters from the city center there. A few weeks later, however, she broke the lease agreement that was ready to be signed.
In the city council debate, the project met with a majority of goodwill, albeit accompanied by critical comments, especially about the high-rise buildings, the small number of apartments and the planned huge underground car park. Ultimately, the planning committee passed the approval resolution and conditional resolution on the statutes for the development plan with a large majority, against the votes of ÖDP/Munich-List and Die Linke/Die Party – and thus made the preliminary decision to grant the investor the building rights for his project.
The urban design was created in a rather unusual workshop process. A jury selected two designs from an initial seven concepts. The architectural offices of KCAP (Rotterdam) and Cobe as well as the landscape architects from SLA (both Copenhagen), who came up with these two designs, were brought together and jointly developed a master plan for the development and the open space concept. How exactly the buildings will look like is to be determined in further so-called realization competitions.
The original drafts included high-rise buildings of up to 120 meters in height, but this turned out to be politically unfeasible. High-rise buildings in the south of the city are considered a particularly sensitive issue because – according to critics – they disturb the view of the Alps, especially since Obersendling is 30 to 40 meters higher than downtown Munich. Ultimately, the city and the investor agreed on three times 80 meters. Paul Bickelbacher, who represented the position of the largest city council faction, Die Grünen/Prosa Liste, admitted that these buildings also “affect the view of the Alps”. But it is always “a matter of consideration”. With what the city is getting as a result of the project, “I accept that”. Heike Kainz (CSU) called the skyscrapers “so reasonable”. Jörg Hoffmann (FDP) thought it was “a shame that it was cut”. Brigitte Wolf (left), who rejects the project, saw things differently: “An important argument with high-rise buildings is the height of the terrain. That’s why they have a completely different effect in the south.”
The second sensitive point is the apartments. Micky Wenngatz (SPD) called it positive that Obersendling would get an additional cultural location and that the district would benefit from additional gastronomic offers, “but actually we need more housing construction”. However, the planning department points out that the construction project is located in the Obersendling commercial area and that the location is also problematic for apartments for reasons of noise protection. Nevertheless, Wenngatz asked the department to take advantage of it if there was still room for more apartments. Dirk Höpner (München-Liste) was less forgiving: “We don’t agree with the number of apartments. It will be difficult to create such a lively district.”
A central question in every construction project is how it affects the climate and the environment. In a sustainability charter, the investor has committed to using as many recycled building materials as possible and building energy-saving buildings. In addition, a former railway track is to be turned into a public recreation area. However, a continuous underground car park is planned under the entire construction area, the concrete required for this entails large CO₂ emissions. The Green City Councilor Paul Bickelbacher is “critical”. Brigitte Wolf from the left asked the investor not to build on at least parts of the property “so that you can plant a real tree that can grow for 100 years”. In order to improve the ecological footprint of the district, the green-red coalition introduced an amendment – which was then adopted unanimously – which obliges the client to build as many photovoltaic systems as possible, up to 60 percent of the roof areas should be used for this.