Niederrad office town

Part of the skyline of the Niederrad office district

The Lyoner Quartier ( Niederrad office district until June 2017 ) is a 144-hectare industrial area and, since 2012, has also increasingly been a mixed and residential area in Frankfurt am Main . The area is characterized by various high-rise buildings which, compared to the skyscrapers in the central Frankfurt banking district, are rather small to medium-sized.

history

In the 1950s, the eastern part of the Goldstein settlement was almost undeveloped. In 1962, the city decided to designate the site, initially with an area of almost 80 hectares, as a commercial area. The concept, which was considered progressive for the planning period, was an “office city in the country”, i. H. a relatively relaxed high-rise construction with larger surrounding areas should ensure a park-like ambience. The proximity to the airport and the distance to the busy city center should also make the location attractive and at the same time represent a relief center.

Numerous architects, including Egon Eiermann , who designed the high-rise towers for the Olivetti company (1968–1972) raised on funnel-like concrete pillars , created an office district there in the 1960s and 1970s, which around 25,000 commuters come to every day. In 1975 the tram line to Schwanheim was relocated through the office district as a preliminary construction work for the D-route of the Frankfurt U-Bahn and in 1977 the Frankfurt-Niederrad station, which was relocated from Alt-Niederrad and newly built, was opened in the immediate vicinity of the office district. At the same time, the tram line to Schwanheim was moved a little further north to the office city. From 1990 and around the turn of the millennium, the area was compressed to include additional office buildings and additional hotels to a total usable area of almost 1,000,000 square meters. Older buildings from the 1960s were z. Some of them demolished and replaced by fully functional houses. Theoretically, up to 30,000 office workplaces can be accommodated in the entire area.

The resident companies and institutions in the Bürostadt include u. a. Bilfinger Berger (branch), Colt Technology Services (German headquarters ), Hochtief , Nestlé Deutschland AG (headquarters), T-Systems , Deutsche Bahn AG (branches of DB Schenker , DB Systel GmbH and DB ProjektBau ), Siemens , Nintendo , Atos Worldline , Informatica , DekaBank , the Association of German Mechanical and Plant Engineering (VDMA), Wisag (headquarters), the Central Association of the Electrical and Electronics Industry (ZVEI), the ADAC and the AvD (headquarters) as well as the Federal Employment Agency (Central Directorate Hesse) and 6 Hotels.

Structural challenges

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Niederrad office district at dusk, view from the west

The office city suffers from structural problems due to its monostructure, which was deliberately intended in the 1960s. The concept of the “green office city” became an office city with green, but without networking with public green connections. A lack of residential buildings, hardly any shopping opportunities or too little gastronomy made the office city almost extinct in the evenings for years. The construction of the high-rise estate in the Mainfeld area, separated by the railway line, in the 1970s did not change that. The traffic development was also considered inadequate for a long time. Measures against it were the establishment of the additional bus routes 79 in the 1980s and 78 in the 2000s as well as the creation of a further motorway exit on the federal motorway 5 in July 2013.

Another challenge for the district development is the planning of new, competing office spaces in City West , in the Europaviertel and around Frankfurt Airport , for example in the Gateway Gardens industrial park . As a possible consequence, there was already an office vacancy rate of around 30% in the office city in 2006, which is why the city planning office was considering the settlement of apartments on the few remaining areas.

The office vacancy rate has since fallen to 9% (as of December 2017). The idea of converting old office buildings for residential use was and is being implemented in several places by project developers.

Conversion into an office and residential city

High-rise residential building on Lyoner Strasse after the renovation

After the creation of a framework concept for a Frankfurt architecture and planning office in cooperation with the city planning office in 2008, in which the "transformation of a monofunctional office area" was proposed under the new name "Lyoner Viertel", the city council of Frankfurt am Main prepared two development plans in 2012 : They cover 100 hectares of the core area of the office city; Up to 4,000 apartments for up to 8,000 residents are planned. The goal is to be achieved in three ways: conversion of existing houses, further densification on the z. In some cases generous intermediate areas, clearing of an allotment garden as well as the demolition of vacant office buildings and new construction of residential buildings, accompanied by site redesigns such as playgrounds, small parks, continuous green strips and bike paths.

The first building to be converted into a residential building designed by the Frankfurt architect Stefan Forster was the 15-storey high-rise Lyoner Strasse 19, which had been vacant for years . For 15.4 million euros the office building was gutted, raised by two floors, surrounded with a modern base and filled with 98 partially furnished apartments and a commercial enterprise. The renovation was completed in mid-2010 and the first apartments were then rented out. According to the city planners, this could be the signal for further conversions, especially since the monostructural concept is now considered out of date from an urban planning perspective. In December 2014, 196 ready-to- move apartments were added to the Green Six energy-efficient building at Hahnstrasse 72. A further 1208 apartments were completed in the district by 2019.

There have been further housing projects in the quarter since 2018:

Cube Ruby 923, Goldsteinstraße 130: 137 residential units (conversion of a dormitory)
Hahnstraße 30–32: 323 furnished residential units (in planning)
Stadtwaldblick, Hahnstrasse 46–48: 203 apartments
Hahnstrasse 56–60: 120 apartments
Herriotstrasse residential area, Herriotstrasse 5: 227 residential units
Livinit, Lyoner Str. 11: 395 micro apartments (conversion of an office building)
Lyoner Straße 32: 320 residential units (in planning)
Lyoner Strasse 38–40a: 160 apartments
Mainwald, Lyoner Strasse 50–56: 700 apartments
Kanso, Saonestr. 1: 309 residential units
Saonestrasse 8-10, 110 apartments

In addition to the around 4,000 apartments, the construction projects also include day-care centers, supermarkets and a significant strengthening of the local supply as well as green spaces suitable for settlement. In this way, the necessary infrastructure for a lively residential area should be created. The increasing construction of condominiums up to 115 m² (“family-friendly apartments”) and living space for students is intended to reduce the proportion of partially used small apartments (weekend commuters).

Location initiative

In April 2014 the location initiative Neues Niederrad eV (SINN) was founded. Property owners, project developers and local companies have come together in it. The initiative accompanies the transformation of the Niederrad office district towards a mixed-use office and residential area.

renaming

In the spring of 2015, SINN took the initiative to rename the no longer appropriate previous district designation. SINN was supported by the city of Frankfurt and the economic development agency.

The competition held in 2015 to determine a new name resulted in the following suggestions, among others:

Rothenham after a building complex that used to be in the vicinity, which was referred to in a map from 1879 as "Roter Hamm", later "Rothenham".
Südweststadt as a counterpart to the Nordweststadt, also laid out in Frankfurt in the 1960s .
Südend based on the Frankfurt Nordend .

Less promising candidates were proposals as Flexi City Niederrad , blocks or Rubixstadt alluding to the Rubik's Cube by Erno Rubik .

It has been official since June 26, 2017: the Niederrad office district is officially called the Lyoner Quartier . The magistrate announced the renaming in the Official Gazette (Official Gazette 2017, p. 957); Local Advisory Council 5 decided to change the name in March 2017.

Niederrad sewage treatment plant

One of the largest and most modern sewage treatment plants in Germany is in the immediate vicinity, you can see it when you drive past the Main at the half-timbered building with turrets from the previous turn of the century. Occasional odor nuisance in the event of disturbances in the sewage treatment plant and the corresponding wind situation have been common up to now. The sewage treatment plant has three primary clarification basins on the site. In order to minimize the odor nuisance for the new quarter, the first basin was already covered in 2014. Another primary clarifier was covered in the 2nd quarter of 2015. The associated exhaust air treatment also went into operation in the 2nd quarter of 2015. The last primary clarifier was rebuilt by the end of 2015 and closed down for this purpose. This means that unpleasant odors are no longer noticeable in the neighborhood.

swell

↑ ^a ^b Martin Wentz: Urban Development . In: Planning Department City of Frankfurt am Main (Hrsg.): The future of the urban - Frankfurter contributions . tape 9 . Campus, Frankfurt / New York 1996, ISBN 3-593-35578-7 , pp. 167 f .
↑ Office city becomes a model , Frankfurter Rundschau of January 26, 2017, [1]
↑ Construction boom in the southwest of Frankfurt , Frankfurter Rundschau of March 27, 2018, [2]
^ Bürostadt Niederrad on the website of the City Planning Office Frankfurt am Main, [3] (visited on February 19, 2015)
↑ Apartments in Niederrad , on the website of the Neues Niederrad eV site initiative, lebige-buerostadt.de (visited on January 28, 2017)
^ Green swab for the office city , Frankfurter Neue Presse from May 14, 2016 [4]
^ New life in the office city , Frankfurter Rundschau of August 8, 2016 [5]
↑ The initiative , on the website of the Neues Niederrad eV site initiative, leben-buerostadt.de (visited on March 2, 2015)
^ New name for the Niederrad office district
↑ Renaming , minutes from PARLIS accessed on Feb. 25, 2020