What can you do with an empty department store?

[@PlittHD]

Easy answer: Turn them into real life Mario Kart tracks

[@hollowknightenjoyer]

Fits with my banana idea

[@fairphoneuser9009]

Real life rainbow road! ❤️

[@ElliotShayle]

I just did this in Brussels and it was actually really cool 😎

[@kray3883]

Actually indoor sports centers are getting some really good real estate in my corner of the world. Kart racing, laser tag, trampoline parks, SCUBA licensing pools, skating (roller and ice), indoor sky diving, indoor mountain bike (really), even an indoor ski slope is planned! We have lots of space for outdoor sports, too, but these are in more urban areas so travel time is a lot less and also they're big birthday party destinations and you can hardly plan a party for a dozen teens based on seeing what the weather is like day of.

[@rioghander2te]

real life coconut mall sounds like a great fit

[@Jensen_Holger]

Well done. I live in Wiesbaden, which struggles with the same issue: an empty and thus useless Kaufhof building

[@eljanrimsa5843]

just spend 25 million to buy it, 40 million to renovate it, and then start thinking what you want to do with it

[@gargoyle7863]

@@eljanrimsa5843 At least they bought it, a.k.a. they are in control, and renovated it so it isn't entirely worthless. Could be worse.

[@OKLDT]

Have a look at the Jupiter project in Hamburg. They converted a department store into a place of art, community and startups. They even built a drone racetrack in there. As a city planer (not working in the field) I find this amazing.

[@actua99]

My local council knocked an uninspiring post-war department store down to replace it with an uninspiring store block with expensive, over-large housing on top. Hope Hanau gets it right, maybe we can take a leaf out of their book next time :)

[@ElliotShayle]

Where is this? I'm curious to see it from an urban design perspective

[@PauxloE]

In Berlin, the branch of Kaufhof at Ostbahnhof was closed years ago, and then the building was converted into an office building, rented by Zalando and then (partially) sub-let to other companies, as during the Pandemic it turned out they don't need as much office space. It's quite nice, I worked there for a while.

[@Christian-t9o]

Essen had a empty store building and needs a new library. Magical things happend, and they will use the old building.

[@sebastiant4597]

Your magic is lame and boring! In Dortmund we had the oldest masonry town hall north of the Alps. It survived WW2 comparatively well but was eventually torn down. (Behold though most of the structure of the over 700 years old building was still original, the facade had been altered multiply times during refurbishment. Thus city council found it to have little historical value, insufficient to support it's preservation. And we got? A shopping arcade and a LIBRARY. That Library became a protected landmark for beeing a prime example for 1950s architecture. However city council decided to tear it down in favour of an extension to the local Karstadt store. 🥳🥳🥳🥳 And please let's not talk about our new townhall. The facade, plated with red granite needs additional heating, so it won't break and crumble off during winter. 🤦🏼‍♂️

[@unconventionalideas5683]

Housing on the upper floors, and the plan for the top floor, ground floor, and basement are solid.

[@joc6516]

Super interesting and great from a German perspective. When I lived in Frankfurt, there were two department stores, a Galleria and Kaufhof. The Kaufhof has closed (and replaced with a budget clothes store) and whilst the Galleria, I think, is still open (and expanded in the last years), it has become less of a department store over the years. You used to be able to buy electronics there, CDs etc, but it's pretty much now mostly a clothes store with extra departments for kitchen, linen, cosmetics and baggage - but at least some departments. (oh and the wonderful food sections) When I moved to Manchester in 2016 there were 5 department city centre stores compared to Frankfurt's 2. Selfridges, House of Fraser, BHS, Debenhams and Harvey Nicholes. Of that Selfridges, BHS and Harvey Nicholes didn't have many departments either, but at least Debenhams and House of Fraser still had a few extras including electronics & furniture. There were of course plenty earlier department stores like Lewis's and such that are long gone, and the Lewis's building is now the Primark I think, so no longer a department store but a bit clothing one. Now we've lost BHS and Debenhams. The BHS store may still be empty... who knows, it was in a weird almost underground location. The Debenhams is being renovated, keeping it's wonderful art deco look into small retail shops on the lower floors with offices on the rest. House of Fraser is supposed to be converted to offices as well, which probably means it will lose it's amazing glass brick walls since offices will need real windows. Just a pity we don't have a John Lewis in the city centre. We have two in the suburbs of Manchester, but John Lewis is a real, proper department store with a lot of departments. You can still get all the stuff from say Galleria, but they also have a TV, HiFi, Computer departments, as well as furniture department where you can pretty much fit out your house, including white goods department and even kitchen design. You can find an outdoor department with BBQ's and garden stuff including gazebos and summer houses, or a blinds department. It's really quite staggering in today's "department store" equivalents... although, John Lewis are also having problems, so maybe this will change too... :(

[@torspedia]

This, unfortunately, is happening everywhere, as many UK high streets and city centres are suffering. I look forward, though, to seeing your regular updates on this Hanau project. 🙂

[@twentyrothmans7308]

After far too long in Germany, I cannot recall all the dead shops, large and small. That's not counting all the pubs that have perished. And it's precisely the same in the UK. I never visited Hanau because nobody suggested that it was worth visiting.

[@rank_and_file_analyst]

We visited twice as a family. The only thing that is worth to go is a lahmacun place that can make the real deal, a crisp lahmacun just like you can find in Türkiye.

[@fubini_yt]

Same situation in Iserlohn: An old, abandoned Karstadt building adjacent to a central square. The city bought the building even before Karstadt decided to leave. The city decided to completely tear it down, so we just have an empty lot there now. There are ideas to put a new multistory building there, with shops, restaurants, a media library, living, and probably rooms for the city. Right across this lot, there is the new town hall, which is going to be demolished in the near future (as all workers will temporarily move to an old school, and some point to a "new new town hall" which will be built somewhere, sometime. However, the city is not at all bathing in money, so we will see when any of these building projects will actually start in the future.

[@insu_na]

Turn it into a datacenter. Department Stores generally have decent-ish fire suppression and okay-ish air conditioning and pretty OK power grid connections. Now all they need is some thick fiber runs to Frankfurt am Main, which is right next door, and they can open a decent data center for low cost.

[@HeadsFullOfEyeballs]

I don't think people would want a huge windowless high-security compound right in the middle of a nice pedestrianised area.

[@insu_na]

@@HeadsFullOfEyeballs Probably not, but it'd be a pretty good investment that could fund other public goods

[@patrickhanft]

They should put their public (that the city hopefully has) inside such an important building in a central location. That could offer a "third place" that don't expect you to spend money, around all these other quite sensible ideas. I like especially the plans to have a venue for public events. Maybe also add some maker spaces and public workshops. That would create a genuine creative space that could revive the area around it and also draw startups and companies into the office space around, that are attracted to such an environment, which again will help gastronomy and other small businesses. The department store as the magnet that draws all the people into the cities is a thing of the past that probably won't return in this way. But that doesn't mean, that there aren't any other kinds of magnets that can increase the sojourn quality.

[@raraavis7782]

How amazing that would be...

[@nlpnt]

Libraries are becoming this in the US. Mostly by default since we have so few other non-commercial third places, but librarians are really embracing it enthusiastically, no more shushing from behind reading glasses on the tip of the nose! (although such libraries invariably do have "quiet reading rooms").

[@bobi7152]

Reading this I also thought right away: a library! I believe libraries in Germany are also turning into these community centres, and the building would be perfect for it. In München there is the Motorama, which has a strong post-war department store vibe, together with two (three?) supermarkets and an sbahn stop in the building.

[@juppjames9635]

My hometown Lünen had the same problem with a Hertie building, it now looks really good, after most of the space was turned into flats.

[@elfo7918]

Oh boy, Hanau... I lived in a city next to Hanau for 12 years and moved away 5 years ago. The City center was a bit odd, because it wasn't really in the middle of the city, there was just the Central Train Station, which also was far away (for walking). So the shops there were always struggling except Saturn, now MediaMarkt. But it's good, that they try to transform the Building into something new. I wonder, when they close the Galeria here in Würzburg and what will happen to it. Our city seems to kill the culture here sadly...

[@edsontransports9400]

Having the power to change the like count from 999 to 1 thousand is special.

[@oliphant2848]

If it's any consolation, the cemetery where the Brothers Grimm are buried (and where my mother is buried too) is beautiful (Alter St. Matthäus-Kirchhof). It's in a quiet corner of Berlin-Schöneberg. Okay, except for the S-Bahn line next door.

[@swedneck]

better an s-bahn line than a highway!

[@daanwillemsen223]

The S bahn can be very charming

[@gmikecstein]

The Kaufhof in Hanau was an institution. My mother was born there and she remembers that even in the 60s she would go there with her Grandmother. It was the hub of the town post-war and it left a hole in people's hearts that the city didn't want to disappoint it's citizens.

[@rewboss]

I assume you didn't mean to imply your mother was born in a department store...

[@NicolaW72]

Really a complex and difficult Story: Thank you very much for picking it up!🙂👍

[@Matt_The_Hugenot]

It's a similar situation in my corner of the UK. The town has lost all three department stores, the grey concrete shopping centre is empty. Being England everyone blames the council for everything including spending money trying to make the place better.

[@HenryLoenwind]

I don't know about Hanau, but judging from my area, what's really needed are non-commercial meeting spaces. Every club that's between "fits into someone's living room" and "has enough members to rent a building" is struggling with this. Even groups that would fit into a living room are always looking for spaces to meet unless one of the members lives somewhere the others can get to easily. In the past, many restaurants had back rooms you could get for "one drink per person" when they weren't used for something else. But those are long gone. And about the operating cost...as the city owns the building outright, they could rent out space for a bistro-style restaurant and, instead of charging rent, charge "operate the community space".

[@troelspeterroland6998]

This unfilled need actually opens up hope for unused shops in our towns. One can only hope that those needs can be matched.

[@idraote]

I'm getting old and I find myself thinking about old shops with competent shopping assistants with a small tear in my eye.

[@steve_1507]

Same in Regensburg. Galeria Kaufhof closed down and there’s now an empty giant building right in the middle of the city

[@mikethespike7579]

Hanau has it easy peasy with just one former department store. Here in Berlin we have at least one in each district. And on top of that a tonne of huge shopping malls to boot.

[@NationGamer090]

I think a new video is in order, since there are more concrete plans and construction is currently being done. Looking forward to it!

[@MrGreatplum]

As a town planner here in the uk, this is very interesting to me - thank you :) In the uk of course, there are great piles of Debenhams department stores languishing in big towns and there’s a lot of thought going in by local councils as what can be done…

[@Fay33]

Make it a one-stop day visit. Have a permanent immersive exhibition, think TeamLabs or something like instagram-museum, a place to take selfies and post them in social media to keep visitors coming, give a Hanau twist, use the Grimm brothers tales and folklore but make it modern. This could be on the first floor, on the ground places restaurants, bakeries, ice cream parlors for the hungry visitors, underground can be supermarkets for the locals (this is popular im cities like tokio and london), make use of the roof as a 360° deck platform with a garden/greenery, a place to hang out, maybe even a roof top bar. If there is more levels to this building then one could think of cinema/gym or stores. In order to make such places lively there's gotta be a reason to go there.

[@andicui]

3:29 Pedantry: Austria has a "Parlament", not a "Bundestag".

[@oliverraven]

Specifically, the lower house is the *Nationalrat* - a committee of which Benko was meant to appear before. (I studied for a semester in Austria and am also a pedant.)

[@BarbokVA]

Sell things youd usually not order online, mostly groceries. Especially farmers goods. Sell local things as well, just like Japans outskirt towns survive, bring in people through town unique things like, specific cuisine from that area, again fruits veggies, meat etc that only comes from local sources and such. Libraries, these days barely existing anymore but bring in Libraries that are free to use with the new EID (so that thing finally has a use), make it have wifi and computers for the public to use.

[@GroovingPict]

I dunno, I think it's fitting that the home town of the Grimm brothers looks... grim.

[@karlwiklund2108]

Reutlingen is in the same boat with ours. A real shame too. When we first arrived here in 2016, it was incredibly convenient to have so much under one easily accessible roof, especially as we didn't yet speak the language.

[@Everythingwithonehand]

The old BHS in Glasgow is now a multiplex cinema plus several eateries alongside several other entertainment venues like an arcade and bowling alley. Unfortunately, the even larger Debenhams just next to it is now also empty with little prospect of such a future.

[@NM4500]

Check out Fulda. Same situation. The Galiera Kaufhof building is owned and converted by the city.

[@nlpnt]

Burlington, Vermont put a high school in the old Macy's (formerly Filene's) building. It's only a temporary relocation though, while a new school is built on the site of the old one (which was contaminated with PCBs).

[@HotelPapa100]

Sounded kinda eerie to hear the same names involved that have reduced a very traditional department store in my closest city , Basel, to a gaping hole in the ground with nobody really knowing what will happen next.

[@L4NC3_L0T]

I still remember when we had a "Hertie" department store, which was great at the time... and got later bought up by Karstadt. shortly after that things sadly went downhill :/

[@coboldgedosch9475]

We have two (almost) empty department stores in Lübeck, too. There are plans to use some of the space for additional clasrooms for a nearby school.

[@Ballerinitini0815]

I first thought this would be about Heidelberg. Exactly the same problem

[@youtubekommentar5494]

At the pedestrian areas in the central, renting a store also became incredible expensive. And it's made more an more hard to get there by car to better get the stuff home you bought. So you better drive to the big shops in the business areas outside the town. In our pedestrian area (like 500m long and like just one street) in the central useful stores are closing and maybe a short time later, like the 100th Döner-Imbiss, the 50th 1EUR shop or the 20th finger-nail-shop comes up...

[@535phobos]

We got this beautiful Ex-Karstadt art nouveau building in Görlitz, that has been in investment limbo for around 20 years now. You might know it as the foyer of the Grand Budapest Hotel. Would be nice, though, to have it do something useful again. The latest plans want to connect it to the mall next door to give some upper class shopping experience or whatever. We will see what comes from that

[@hollowknightenjoyer]

Id just turn it into a warehouse full of bananas. Bananaland. Bananas. Bananas...

[@martin.brandt]

Wow! You certainly found the solution! Even better than an Apple store!

[@lillywho]

Bananenrepublik

[@synapsenfick6841]

I hope Hanau calls it Bananau.

[@EintrachtFrankfurt-12]

Gutes Video

[@DarthLenaPlant]

In a district of Vienna they had knocked down a decrepit shopping mall and replaced it with appartments (that have shops in the groundfloor zone). Actually it did it to two of these, funnily enough they are even on the same block

[@st0ox]

The insane thing is they still don't lower the rents on shop store fronts. I know a restaurant in a pretty dead shopping street that had to pay 50% more rent from one month to the next, so they just moved to another place.

[@pickled51]

About 15 years ago a shopping center several miles from me was going downhill due to it's weird layout constructed on a hillside. The owners could not afford to make all the required improvements to make the two floor shopping center accessible to the handicapped. The city decided to buy it and got one of the large local hospitals to create medical offices on the second floor while the lower level remained for retail. Surprisingly it worked. The area is now a hub of activity with numerous retail and restaurant establishments surrounding the shopping center. Now another shopping center just a couple of miles from me has fallen into disrepair. So the city decided to buy that shopping center as well thinking they could revive it the same way the 15 year old shopping center was invigorated. The city contacted the same hospital to set up medical offices in part of the shopping center. The hospital initially was enthusiastic about the property. But a few months ago the hospital decided it could not afford to set up another medical center. Currently the city is doing some work at the shopping center, but what their actual goal for the outcome for this property is unknown.

[@QALibrary]

In the USA closed Walmarts have been changed into schools, libraries and what they are planning here

[@danielmalinen6337]

One influencing factor is probably how much money the customers spend on purchases and services. For example, in Finland, consumer spending dropped significantly during the pandemic and has fallen rapidly since then, so that the Finnish government has asked Finnish citizens to spend more money to keep the economy and economic growth going. However, time will tell whether consumption will increase when prices and living costs have risen and will continue to rise due to inflation, but people's incomes will not and they state that they don't have more money to spend than what they already have.

[@jorgkunischewski9363]

In my Hometown they managed to keep a Galeria Kaufhof and a Karstadt next to each other, Til this day. Both Stores are still operating and survived all "mishaps" until now, both are kind of big and in the middle of the centre... So If both stores close at the same time.... So that's something to worry about. Having this big empty spaces in the centre of town may cause a big blow on the attractivity of the whole inner city. On the other Hand my hometown IS a cultural hub, and quiet wealthy, struggling with high rents and a lack of housing... So there are a lot of opportunities in this buildings.

[@Mommethebest96]

Heidelberg also has a big Galeria in Bismarckplatz (one of the main squares and central nodes of the public transport system) that closed in late 2023 and is now empty, I wonder what will happen with the building. The other Galeria in the Hauptstraße however is doing okay, as far as I can see (even tho I only go to the Go Asia there, to be fair).

[@roundroscoe6502]

I used to live across street from the Tansas grocery store back in 2004.

[@Hegad_org]

My city has the same issue. An ex Karstadt building that is just staning there crumbleing apart. The city wants to buy it to tear it down and build a park there. But the american investors don't want to sell it. Nobody knows what use they have for a building that is crumbling in a crumbling city, but they are really keen on keeping it and letting it rot.

[@jamesharrison2374]

I would think turn it into housing, with restaurants, bars and a small super market. Returning from my recent trip to Germany it seems many of the small shops are retiring, and families did not follow in the footsteps to take over.

[@Notfallkaramell]

Not neccessarily a department store, but a local Real with some smaller stores sharing the building got demolished. And replaced with a Kaufland. We now have two. The old one is better. Considering how dead my town is, I am surprised it got replaced by something.

[@oliverraven]

I was last in Aschaffenburg in late 2015, so it's sad to see what's become of it since then - but the High Street in my city here in the UK has gone downhill even more in that time.

[@holger_p]

People often don't realize, they are the reason themselfes. You don't go there, and complain others aren't going there either. So you should be sad, you yourself aren't going shopping there any more.

[@Canleaf08]

​@@holger_p Look at what these Kaufhofs offer for people and what people want and need. This is often not on offer. Or the staff can't sell anything. They do not want to sell anything. At some point you have a monolith, which does not want to change.

[@holger_p]

@@Canleaf08 But do you think, it would be possible to suit all your needs ? Do they make mistakes, or is it impossible to be perfect ? I think it's impossible. Just saying "is a special article available in the shop" .. before you leave home, they are unable to do. I personally never want any staff, I just need the cashier (as in any supermarket). People are different.

[@jeanjacques9980]

I visited the Kaufhof store in Munich, it was huge, shame to think it’s gone. I think Munich at the time had four department stores?

[@derhinek]

Our city is planning to cut down a lot of old trees in our central park to build a new library. They don't know what to do with most of the space in the old one (except for the ground floor), there are letters in the newspaper asking if the library really needs more space, because of ebooks and if we can't just use one of the empty buildings to extend the existing library. But the move on, because it is already planned and probably because the mayor promised the building sector to do this. 😞

[@1337dingus]

Reminds me a lot of the city I live in, Halle. Similar story. Huge Galeria Kaufhof right in the middle of the city next to the beautiful Marktplatz, now sitting there totally empty and from what I've heard will be converted to office spaces?

[@raraavis7782]

That's so sad. I went to university there in 2003/4. Always wondered, how the city has developed and changed since then.

[@paradonym]

Our big Kaufhof Store in the city is about to close. They thought of building flats for poor people, but the rent minimum would be way too high for them to actually do this. It's right in the city centre, they can't change it to living spaces because of the minimum rent for this place

[@rogink]

The parent company might have folded - but if there was a future for department stores another business would have snapped the stores up. Even before the pandemic, or online retail, it was hard to see the point of the department store. Massive shops selling everything under the sun. Sure, they had cafes and toilets - of course in Germany you had to pay to use them :) Good luck to Hanau, but where I live we had two department stores on opposite corners of the main shopping street that closed within a year of each other. That was 3-4 years ago. and it's a prosperous area. We've had plans to convert the ground floor to niche market areas, GP surgeries, other small businesses, with residential above. We've had contractors making a lot of noise working them. But still nothing. And both buildings are non-descript 1960s blocks, so no worry over historic status.

[@electro_sykes]

brisbane is using the old myer centre for pop up exhibts and its actuallly bringing back foot traffic

[@ezyzet]

As a city planning student, I'm actually currently writing a paper about this :D

[@eftalanquest]

my hometown is in a similar struggle with our former kaufhof. two(!) empty multi storey buildings no one really knows what to do with

[@Jonathan.-bi3cu]

love these vidoes

[@anokata-kd8oc]

The industrial flea market/food court style is exactly what people call "instagramable" if you put design elements in. If it's sustainable though..

[@AH-xf3by]

A little bit off topic: Würzburg. It doesn't have a shopping center (Kaufhof does not count) and yet shops there are regularly empty, change the "content" (and then often become cell phone shops or cheap bakeries or food stalls) and that's been the case since the early 2000s... then I'd rather go to Aschaffenburg with it's "mall"🤔

[@TygonPanthera]

We got two of those here... One of them has a sort of exhibition space on the ground floor now. The other one is still empty.

[@PascalGienger]

The problem with those huge department stores is that it has natural light only at the window fronts - so not much will be usable as office space or classrooms - they are illegal when they only have artificial lighting 24h.

[@jan-peterkylli5044]

Personally, I would try to renovate everything into apartments and coffee shops, but this is not that easy with most department store or mall spaces left over in this time of re-imagination of our city centres. Although not for everybody, many people want to live in a central location. With the money available, turn it into a great public space: ***A MODERN LIBRARY*** with great public facilities for the people in the city centre to enjoy a non commercial space. I don't know whether Hanau has a city centre library, but I would Imagine a mall could supply with great wide spaces, just punch in some windows for more natural light. Inspiration for it could be something like the Oodi library in Helsinki. Although a new build and not in the most central spot, it creates pull because it offers more than books, it has reading and study spaces, 3D printing capabilities, textile work stations, recording studios for sound and video... it creates a real community space. I think that is what these city centres could use instead of department stores no one uses.

[@j.lietka9406]

Also miss the Imbiss! How much is the property worth? What, roughly, are the taxes for that size of floor space?

[@Ned-Ryerson]

Ha! Aschaffenburg still has its Kaufhof, which is rather uninspiring in its own right, but I would not consider the town's shopping district too badly hit - yet. It is definitely not quite on the level of previous decades, and it might be failing overall, but I still like the centre ... something I cannot say for Hanau, decent shopping or not.

[@frankfurtrob866]

Rarely comment on but just moved the Hanau and I just love how walkable the city centre is - tons of cheap parking and excellent transit connections unlike many dead town centres Hanau feels alive. The mayor has my vote in the next election - he's done a fantastic job of managing the city (especially compared to where I lived before) As for its poor reputation - I think that is due to the fact it's heavily Turkish. Off topic but it's also why I prefer living here over Munich. Frankfurt is very car friendly (trade off is noise though. And before you complain 99% og German drive. Edit: it's not clear from the video but thankfully the shell is barely noticeable. It's kind of tucked away, you wouldn’t¡t notice it right away.

[@bjoern0975]

Okay, from some of the comments here I can take that the situation must be similar in parts of the UK. But, when I visit there, as a German I am still puzzled by the number of department store chains that can still be found in London. Sure, there is the playground of the rich and wealthy, plus thousands of tourists, but I am still wondering how so many different chains can keep up their department stores - and they must have branches in other British cities, too. Germany has basically no other department store chain left other than Galeria Karstadt / Kaufhof (and aligned KaDeWe group), which is now victim of the Signa bankruptcy.

[@timotheatae]

Honestly they did exactly what I would have expected. Personally, I'd probably go hard on the fact it's now publicly owned. It should be for the appeal of the area, the benefit of the people, not just revenue. Permanent shopfronts for small businesses rented out at cost, a daycare, and a park on top with food stalls, rather than an overlording company controlling the whole roof as their premises. The stage is a very nice idea, and the middle sections could surely be used for community spaces. Perhaps a library, public open office space?

[@hoppes979]

Big data , technology etc are by design tend to benefit large businesses. Hate it, but no option

[@hibertansiyar]

Lot's of nice ideas but according to the rumors, looks like ours in Darmstadt will be demolished and a new hotel will be built.

[@feedbackzaloop]

I think it is important to devide struggle of small shops and department stores. First reopen quite quickly and one shop simply gets replaced with another similar, fashion becomes fashion, food turns into food. Big stores always have to be a part of a big city plan. It may be a rather costly investment, but definetely worthy. Take town of Aachen for example: at some point it had four department stores with couple shopping centers not quite the proper size to count as a department store (for the population of 250 thousands). One is Galeria Kaufhof which is too big to go down and located to central to undergo full rebuild, it only got a bit rearranged, another Aquis Plaza - a long awaited modern glass monster, which kind of helped the demise of two smaller and older brothers, drawing shops and customers to itself. Now, to the interesting part: one of these two malls kept the local eesentials like grocery shop and gym, but otherwise got occupied by town and governmental services. Another got closed earlier and is undergoing the takeover by community college and library. What happens to the older buildings of said college and town officials is another story, as they have to be renovated or rebuilt anyway, but I fully support this continous town rejuvenation by moving places. Heck, in past 10 years I moved 6 times myself and will likely do it again by the end of this year.

[@holger_p]

Your "have to be part of" is not really conclusive. It has to be this way, cause you say so ? You talk like "people have to go shopping". No, they don't. They can have things delivered.

[@feedbackzaloop]

@@holger_p this is absolutely not what and how I said. A big building on a big chunk of municipal land is handled by the municipality, disregarding whether I say so myself or vote for as a citizen. It will be anyway, because that is how society works. In leichter Sprache, I say "what to do with department store depends on the town plan", you read "town plan must have departmant store".

[@holger_p]

@@feedbackzaloop That's what you literally said "Big stores always have to be a part of a big city plan." It's completly synonym as "town plan must have departmant store". I read it, cause you wrote it. Here you came again with the assumption "big chunk of municipal land ". Where do you get the ownership from ? Having a city plan means, you can prohibit construction or sales. Private investors apply for permit, you can negotiate a little, but you cannot instruct what to build.

[@feedbackzaloop]

@@holger_p it is not synonymous. You simply cannot read passive voice - passiv - and distinguish modal verbs - muss vs soll sein. Prohibition on the type of construction is exactly the way to tell what and how to build. Also town and land often play a role as one of the main investors in such projects.

[@holger_p]

@@feedbackzaloop I don't see a difference from mussen to sollen, even when you say you wished it, it still indicates your opinion or preference. There is neither a law, nor causal logic to your statement. Now you come up with " there often is" , which is much better than " it has to be". But I dislike you discipline me like an idiot, due to inproper wording.

[@CoL_Drake]

we had 2 huge kaufhof in few hundret meters apart from each other in a relativ small (250.000) city. one was emty for years then another company went in and now is out again its emty again, while now also the other kaufhof closes so we have two huge buildings emty in the middle of the city ... and there are a few more of this huge ones if they go emty too ... damn

[@Weissenschenkel]

Markt Zwei seems good, sounds nice and can be pronounced easily in several languages. Even if botched by people who speak romance languages like me.

[@galdavonalgerri2101]

6:06 HU is the abbreviation for Hauptuntersuchung (general inspection), the legally required biennial* technical inspection of motor vehicles and trailers. How could one come up with the idea of proposing this abbreviation as a name for a multi-use house? (* there are exceptions)

[@rewboss]

It's also the abbreviation for "Hanau".

[@galdavonalgerri2101]

@@rewboss Ah, I'm too far away. Thank you

[@VascovanZeller]

6:00 They are trying something different, they have an ambitious schedule and they put a nondescript city on the map. Is it really so embarrassing if the project fails?

[@feedbackzaloop]

Now that you put it this way, failure would be not shame, but nation-wide tragedy, discouraging similar projects elsewhere.

[@VariTimo]

As a German born, the main reason I’m gonna leave this place besides how our art is dead is the way this places looks now.

[@Canleaf08]

Community Centres. Libraries, gyms, swimming pools, Climbing gyms, something for the community.

[@chriswade7470]

Sad to say, this is not peculiar to Germany. Sheffield where I’m originally from lost its main department store a couple of years ago ( a branch of John Lewis) the building is still vacant and has like Galerria Ksufhof been bought buy the City Council.

[@Pseudynom]

The bankruptcies of Karstadt and Galeria were intentional. They were in prime locations and Benko tried to get them out by raising the rent rediculously high.

[@angharadhafod]

€25M for a property no-one else wants? Whatever happened to supply and demand?

[@francesconicoletti2547]

That much for land in the middle of a second tier German city. That wouldn’t be land nobody wants, we are not talking about a town in a flyover state in the US .

[@Canleaf08]

@@francesconicoletti2547 This is much land, but also a lot of reno to do. Removal of PCB, asbestos and other potential dangerous contamination. Look what they did to the building NA at the Ruhr Uni Bochum. This building was built with such contamination that it needed to be torn down and will be rebuilt from scratch. Any other building of the campus needs to go through the same thing. This comes on top of the 25 millions. A potential tear down and contamination removal process.

[@killianRock]

Indoor Playground and Laser Tag ! :D I dont get why this is not a thing

[@athompso99]

This isn't even a German, nor European problem - North America has the identical problem with large department stores going bankrupt (or "right-sizing" their fading empires) which leaves large empty holes in what (usually) were once prime shopping districts.

Well, it partly seems to come down to mismanagement. For example, the El Corte Ingles stores in Spain, Peek & Cloppenburg stores here and Ahlens stores in Sweden seem to be doing better than those of Karstadt or some of the US dept stores.

[@athompso99]

@ culture matters, too, both social and "corporate culture".

[@nlpnt]

So, Galeria-Kaufhof is the Kmart-Sears of Germany, then.

[@ulrikehoffmann6268]

Hopefully it works!

[@AndreasMolnar-Dev]

What about turning it into an IKEA?

[@habibikebabtheiii2037]

To centrally located. IKEA likes being far away as a marketing ploy.

[@Hendricus56]

That reminds me of plans for the smaller 2nd Karstadt building in Lübeck (yes, that company is still Karstadt for me, I don't care about that long name). The city bought it a few years ago because the schools in the city center need more space. Now I wonder what will happen with the way larger main building next to it that closed earlier this year

[@JustinSh.]

Instagramability is the bane of our existence.

[@Nadia1989]

Health or community center

[@gabe_o_verse]

Why not just tear it all down and get some people to build up some small, "hip" Restaurants there that have minergy houses and the rest could be a park for children, bikers and pedestrians and some trees etc.?😊

[@RandoStaRR]

They don't want to increase costs, and they want to help stop the reason the kaufhof is empty in the first place (By promoting business)

[@gabe_o_verse]

@@RandoStaRR But aren't these giant shopping houses just not "zeitgemäss" anymore^^? And I think removing it and just building some foodtrucks is probably cheaper then renovating.

[@ralfjansen9118]

"Wer nichts wird, wird Wirt" - gastronomy is one of the business branches struggling the most. Nothing to expect from there.

[@typxxilps]

refugee camp for sure - always needed.

[@GalacticCommanderMars]

Wait what? They want to put classrooms in the same building as a club and a bar? Hope they build an elementary school inside there, so that the children already can be trained to be faithful (alcohol) consumers, lol. They migh just put in business offices or classrooms for some evening classes or seminars at best, but surely nothing for children.

[@varana]

Probably classrooms for evening classes, Red Cross, or similar things. But even if there are younger children attending, let me introduce you to two important concepts: a) opening hours. The times when children are at school are usually not the ones when you would frequent a club or bar. b) doors.

[@mattiasthorslund6467]

They should invite Rabarber-Barbara to open a bar.

[@officialmcdeath]

So a human-sized Croydon \m/

[@jonny5alive123]

How often do they think people are going to do things on a stage in an old department store? That will just be an empty space in the building 99% of the time.

[@FlatDerrick]

We heard that silly argument about Manchester in the 70s. It lead to the Smiths, Oasis, the Stone Roses etc - and a massive boost for the UK exchequer.

[@jdu7729]

There is a Pop-Up Event space/art gallery in Regensburg, in an old Shop on a pedestrianised street, called M26. Basically when one event ends, the next day a new one gets prepared. And in between events it is used as a community cafe.

[@robertwilloughby8050]

Hanau is also the birthplace of..... Rudi Voeller! (Do I need to say sorry for this? Something tells me I need to say sorry for this.....😉)