Opera passages

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Opera Passages, 2013
"Schweizer Ladenstadt" (October 1965)

The Opern Passagen is a shopping arcade in Cologne-Altstadt-Nord , completed in 1964 , which was initially called “Schweizer Ladenstadt” and then “Kölner Ladenstadt”.

History of origin

Construction began in the spring of 1961 on a 6900 m² rubble site owned by company 4711 . The architect of the "horizontally layered urban element" was the house architect of 4711, Wilhelm Koep . A business center with a multi-storey car park was planned with arcades. The construction costs amounted to 30 million marks . On October 17, 1964, the passage with its honeycomb facade visible from the outside - initially known as the “Swiss Shop Town” - was opened. According to the celebratory speech by Cologne's Lord Mayor Theo Burauen, the layered combination of commercial building, arcade and parking garage was intended to "make the city center attractive and lively and counteract the trend towards building large shopping centers on the outskirts." Bank and a gas station housed. The parking garage had 600 spaces. The 376-seat Theater am Dom was also planned for the construction , where Peter Ustinov's comedy Endspurt began on October 29, 1964 . When it opened, the Ladenstadt was the first shopping mall in Germany.

However, it soon turned out to be bad planning, as the progressing construction of the north-south route cut through the Breite Strasse and therefore significantly lost its attractiveness.

The building complex was increased by two office floors with a steel structure between 1980 and 1982. Since then, the gallery has been called "Kölner Ladenstadt".

Original legal relationships

The area of ​​the Ladenstadt was separated from the area of ​​the 4711 house in the land registry. The Ladenstadt was operated by “Ladenstadt in Köln AG”, Zurich, founded on August 17, 1961, the majority of which belonged to IBZ Finanz AG. This company was owned by the Zurich building contractor Werner Fuchs. The property owner 4711 granted the operator a heritable building right for the use of the property, limited to 50 years. The construction costs were financed, among other things, with construction financing of 10 million marks by three Cologne mortgage banks. The lead manager was the Westdeutsche Bodenkreditanstalt. Bankruptcy was opened on October 25, 1965 via IBZ, on November 5, 1965 via the limited partnership W. Fuchs & Co. and on May 13, 1966 via Ladenstadt in Köln AG. The reasons for bankruptcy in the Ladenstadt were, on the one hand, miscalculations and wrong choice of location away from the Hohe Strasse and Schildergasse shopping centers, and on the other hand, the problems among shareholders. The Ladenstadt in Köln AG went into foreclosure auction on April 14, 1966 . The state of North Rhine-Westphalia bought the building for 11 million marks in order to save a state guarantee in favor of the three mortgage banks. For the purpose of the subsequent out-of-court administration, the "Kölner Ladenstadt Verwaltungs GmbH" was founded, which was monitored by WestLB on behalf of the state .

Todays situation

"Opern Passagen" (February 2010)

After a change of ownership in the meantime, the architect Walter Brune became the new owner in January 1999 , who renamed the Ladenstadt in October 2002 "Opern Passagen". Before that, he carried out a general renovation between October 2001 and December 2002, and he also added a shopping gallery to the building. However, this reduced the usable area to around 21,000 m². Brune again sold the passage in July 2006 to a joint venture consisting of the US investment bank Merrill Lynch (88%) and ECE Projektmanagement (12%). The previous owner (ECE and Blackstone Group ) again sold the property in September 2012 to an - unnamed - Swiss private investor for a purchase price of around 78 million euros. In 2012, this transaction was the most important in terms of volume on the Cologne real estate market. As a result, the mall came back into Swiss ownership, as was the case when it was inaugurated. On January 1, 2013, Opernpassagen GmbH & Co. KG took over the operator function for 21 shops and the theater as well as new catering concepts.

location

The official address is Schwertnergasse 1, 50667 Cologne. The Opern Passagen are located between the eponymous Cologne Opera and Breite Straße and can be reached via the pedestrian zone there . Diagonally opposite are the WDR with the WDR Arkaden and the DuMont Carré in Cologne's shopping center. In the basement there is a passage to the Appellhofplatz underground station and the DuMont Carré diagonally opposite.

The covered passage over Glockengasse directly to the opera was demolished in August 2012 as part of the renovation of the opera and drama.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Fuchs (Ed.), Chronicle of the History of the City of Cologne , Volume 2, 1991, p. 298
  2. ↑ Koep was also responsible for the replica in the neo-Gothic style of the 4711 house at Glockengasse 4 / Schwertnergasse, which was destroyed in the war in October 1964 .
  3. ^ Carl Dietmar / Gérald Chaix, Chronik Köln , 1997, p. 485.
  4. ↑ Peter Fuchs (Ed.), Chronicle of the History of the City of Cologne , Volume 2, 1991, p. 302.
  5. ↑ Borrowed Gold , DER SPIEGEL 6/1966 of January 31, 1966.
  6. ↑ Capital, Volume 19, 1980, p. 59.
  7. ^ The Blackstone Group had acquired all of Merrill Lynch's European real estate.

Web links

Commons : Opera Passages  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 50 ° 56 '19.2 "  N , 6 ° 57' 4.8"  E