A possible purchase of the Hohenzollernkarrees in Schwabing by the city is apparently becoming more concrete. The green-red town hall coalition announced on Friday that the city should acquire the residential complex with 23 houses. You must now “act quickly to avert the abstract danger of a sale to a private investor and to secure affordable apartments for many Schwabing tenants in the long term,” it said in a statement. The coalition also sees the possibility of creating significantly more apartments there through densification.
The SZ reported last autumn that the Hohenzollernkarree was said to have been offered for sale to the city. According to SZ information, the owners of the block, which currently has 230 apartments and a potential for around 115 additional apartments, had submitted a takeover bid to Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD). They are said to have put a purchase price in the region of 200 million euros for the square between Clemens-, Fallmerayer-, Herzog- and Erich-Kästner-Straße. In the meantime, further discussions have taken place, as can be heard from the town hall.
Apparently it has already become quite concrete. However, the owner, Max-Emanuel Immobilien GmbH, does not want to provide any information and refers to the city administration. The municipal department responsible for real estate purchases has not yet been involved in the process. On request, however, a spokeswoman said that “of course we would be happy to get in touch with the owner of the Hohenzollernkarree”. If it is actually for sale and the owners are willing to enter into negotiations with the city, the department will negotiate the purchase and, if necessary, submit it to the city council for a decision.
Should the city buy Hohenzollernkarree, it could be the largest and most expensive deal of its kind. Only the repurchase of formerly state-owned GBW apartments a few years ago was of a similar magnitude in terms of total price to the deal now being sought. At that time, however, the city got almost 1,000 apartments for around 200 million euros – more than four times as many as the Hohenzollernkarree currently has.
The residential complex in Schwabing and, above all, the fate of the tenants have been a concern of local politics since 2013. At that time, the Bavarian official life insurance company sold the residential complex for 54.65 million euros to Patrizia, who in turn sold the property to the current owner in 2015 for 65 million euros Max-Emanuel Immobilien GmbH passed on.
The Munich Tenants’ Association praised the coalition’s purchase plans
“With the Hohenzollernkarree we would buy back a large part of our city,” said SPD faction leader Christian Müller. He fears that a sale to an investor and the subsequent displacement of average earners could otherwise overturn the entire preservation statute. His city council colleague Sibylle Stöhr sounds as if the sale has already been sealed: “With the purchase of Hohenzollernkarrees by the state capital of Munich, the green-red city hall government is implementing an important part of the coalition agreement and at the same time putting an end to speculation at this point,” she said.
The Munich Tenants’ Association praised the coalition’s announcement. “We have been fighting for the tenants of the Hohenzollernkarree for ten years now and welcome the fact that the city wants to save and preserve affordable housing,” said Managing Director Angela Lutz-Plank. Two years ago, the tenants’ association went to the Federal Court of Justice with a model declaratory action against rent increases due to modernization – and lost.
It is now also clear that the Hohenzollernkarree will not receive any monument protection. The residential complex, argues the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments, “does not have the status of a monument due to the major changes and reshaping of the entire complex”.
In addition, the streetscapes around the block are very heterogeneous and reveal “neither a relationship between the block and the surrounding building stock nor any special significance” that would justify an expansion of the listed Nordschwabing ensemble.