For the first time, rents for new buildings in Cologne are higher than in Düsseldorf
Our Managing Director Michael Weidtmann was one of the speakers in the current business roundtable of the Immobilien Manager Verlag.
The other participants of the panel were Udo Girke from Swiss Life Asset Managers, Arne Hilbert from Art-Invest Real Estate, Jens Hoppe from BNP Paribas Real Estate, Holger Kirchhof from Osmab, Klaus Küppers from Pandion AG and Thore Marenbach from Cube Real Estate. One conclusion of the discussion was that Cologne is becoming increasingly attractive and important as a location for office and commercial real estate. In a direct comparision of the cities, Cologne for the first time, is even above the level of Düsseldorf in terms of rents for new buildings. Especially the west of Cologne is currently booming and will continue to do so in the next decade. More than 450,000 square meters of new areas will be created here. The biggest changes can be observed in the Ehrenfeld/Braunsfeld district. Many well-known companies in the real estate sector have invested in development sites or existing properties there. The increasing popularity of Cologne's West as an office location has also been demonstrated by the resounding letting success of our OVUM.
In this case, we have seen that the quality of a building, not the renting price, is the decisive leasing criterion. We were able to achieve rents for the property that were around 30 percent higher than originally calculated, and still had to turn down prospective tenants.
The final conclusion is that Cologne has the unique opportunity to completely reinvent itself in the core city thanks to the various upcoming projects.
