The chief of planning, Joseph, has big plans for Frankfurt: a new generation of tall buildings should bring life back to the city center. It starts with four towers in very little space.

Written by Jan Tosing

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If the four newly planned tall buildings were distributed at ground level in the center of Frankfurt city center, an area as large as the new terminal area would emerge. With “Für”, as real estate developer Groß & Partner calls the four high-rise buildings, a new quarter is being created between Roßmarkt and Goetheplatz. The towers will line up on the horizon between Commerzbank and Omniturm.

Planning Department Mike Joseph (SPD) promised no less than a new generation of high-rise buildings the day the cornerstones were laid. ““For the first time, a tall family is being built in Frankfurt,” he said on Wednesday. “They only exist in Southeast Asia and North America.” Frankfurt opens new horizons with the high-rise area and sets new standards nationwide.

The tall buildings were built in a very narrow place

Skyscrapers grow in a very small area: the smallest is 100 meters, and the highest height is over 230 meters. This makes it as tall as a trade fair tower. The special thing about it: the four towers stand on a common base. The group should open its doors to the city and invite citizens to shop, hang out and live – this is also new in Frankfurt’s banking district, where so far nothing has happened in the evening.

About half of 213,000 square meters is dedicated to offices. The other half provides space for two hotels, a number of shops and restaurants, a daycare center and around 600 apartments. In the future, about 1000 people will live in the four-tower district. A third of the living space is socially funded, Frankfurt-based SPD chairman Josef confirms.

The head of the planning department wants to condense the city center further in the future: “I think anyone who wants to build sustainably and efficiently and conserve space has to have confidence in themselves to be more civilized.” When laying the groundwork, real estate developer Jürgen Gross also stressed that new buildings must be usable in a number of ways: “Complex structures are created and the layout of apartments can be changed and adapted to future forms of life.”

Intended mixed use

The new neighborhood should be incorporated into the surroundings: instead of exuberant facades, attractive rooms should be created. The four towers, according to the plans, are “crooked”, facing each other and connected on two floors by a shopping arcade.

Visitors have access from three sides and can relax and meet on a green roof terrace – this is the wish of city planners. This means that the area has opened up to the city again since the end of World War II. “The large area of ​​Deutsche Bank was a place to work, and a separate room you weren’t allowed in,” Joseph said of the former user of the area. This is about to change: “From a historical perspective, we are developing the place back in the direction it was before. Into a public space with a town square for various uses.”

Renters must move in 2024

In March 2016, an Urban Design Ideas Competition for the district was announced. Amsterdam-based architecture firm UNStudio won the contract in February 2017. About a year later, demolition work began on the Deutsche Bank dark tower. Perhaps the first tenants of the “four” will not be able to move until 2024 at the earliest.

Broadcast: hr-fernsehen, hessenschau, March 17, 2021, 7:30 p.m.