There's a sea of colourful red, green and blue construction cranes twirling above the Überseequartier in HafenCity Hamburg. Here the consortium, made up by the project developer Gross & Partners from Frankfurt and the Dutch real estate companies, ING Real Estate and SNS Property Finance, is developing the largest construction pit of Germany, the Überseequartier. With he emphasis on retail and catering establishments – but also many residences, offices and leisure facilities – the Überseequartier will become the life and soul of HafenCity.
The quarter itself stretches across 7.9 hectares and comprises sixteen sub-projects which are at varying stages of development. The project includes a cruise terminal with a hotel measuring 34,000 m2 and a Science Centre with associated aquarium, which was designed by Rem Koolhaas. The Überseequartier is a mixed development totalling 275,000 m2 of space for living, shopping, relaxing and working. The emphasis lies on the retail sector (57,000 m2) and catering establishments. The first spade went into the soil in September 2007. The first phase which comprises seven buildings will be completed by the end of 2009. Phase two, in which a tube station is now being constructed, will be ready in 2011 or 2012.
Developer
When the consortium, which is financed by the German property bank Eurohypo, swiped the development of Überseequartier right from under the noses of ECE (a specialised German shopping centre developer) in 2005, they assumed that it would involve a total investment of €800 million. According to Wil van der Have, the General Manager of ING Real Estate Development Holding, the current estimates of the actual costs will probably be more in the region of €1 billion. That is mainly because of the rapidly increasing costs of building and raw materials in Germany over the last few years.
Besides that, there are no other setbacks worth mentioning, the Dutch developer says cheerfully from his information centre in Hamburg. ‘We're actually building on unblemished soil. Thanks to the outstanding organisation and all the sound preparations done by HafenCity Hamburg (the projects office of the city); we're also not experiencing any setbacks due to political interventions, which could possibly have led to delays. We've had rather different experiences in other major inner city redevelopments in Europe’, Van der Have says. At ING Real Estate, which is one of the largest real estate companies in the world, he is responsible for project development in Germany, Poland and Belgium. The development division of ING Real Estate in The Hague is also renowned for its extensive experience in both retail property as well as large-scale area development.
‘ECE is specialised in large covered shopping centres based on a certain pattern’, Van der Have recalls. ‘However, in our plan we've distinctly opted for a function mix in the Überseequartier, with a spread of the retail across a large number of buildings. In my opinion, that was the deciding factor for the city at that time.’
According to Van der Have, sales and leasing has not suffered any impact from the credit crunch. Of the office space, 45,000 m2 has been prelet to the city of Hamburg. ‘For three months now, we have been leasing the remaining office space and the retail units. There's a great deal of interest. Negotiations are underway with many interested parties. However, no definite contracts have been signed as yet.’
The multi-functional residential, retail and office complex called Sumatra, which was designed by Erick van Egeraat, has recently been the first property to be sold to an investor. Van der Have does not want to reveal to whom. He likewise doesn't want to disclose the selling price.
Architecture
Without a doub, HafenCity Hamburg, which measures 157 hectares, is one of the most appealing inner city redevelopments. Not only because of its size, as it is the largest inner urban redevelopment in Europe at present, but also because of the new waterfront which will form an integral part of the existing inner city. Another remarkable aspect is the enormous variety of architecture, with creations by the architects Richard Meijer, Rem Koolhaas, Erick van Egeraat, Jacques Herzog and Pierre du Meuron, as well as lesser gods from the world of architecture. Then there's also the ever-trustworthy ‘consistent manner’ in which the project office of Hansa town has managed this redevelopment. The clever function mix, which is a blend of living, working, shopping and leisure, was provided for by the master plan of the urban designer, Kees Christiaanse, from Rotterdam.
HafenCity, which is situated between Speicherstadt (an area of monumental (Unesco) warehouses dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries) and the Elbe River, extends the inner city by 40 percent. The inner city will have a further 5,500 homes and 12,000 more residents. The building activities started in 2003 and will last until 2020 - with a possible extension to 2025.
There is a complicating factor: the former Docklands are situated entirely outside the dyke. Large sections have therefore been raised by 7 to 8 metres as a flood control precaution, against floods which occur at an average of one to two times a year. The municipal council did not want to waste any time by moving the dyke. Via the Elbe River, Hamburg has a long open connection of 60 kilometres with the sea. Despite this distance, the second-largest European seaport has a tides between five and six metres.
Finances
The project management is vested in HafenCity Hamburg Gmbh, a company which is fully owned by the city. This organisation also takes care of the allocation of the land, which is almost entirely owned by the city. Firstly, a so-called ‘Anhandgabeverfahren’ is concluded. This is an exclusive option scheme. It contains the agreements concerning the price and other conditions to which the market party must comply within the option period of one-and-a-half years. That could, for example, be the holding of an architectural competition and the building permit requests. In the meanwhile no negotiations are undertaken with other parties. ‘If the private party does not comply with the conditions or doesn't see any point in it anymore, then the sale is cancelled’, explains Susanne Bühler, head of communications at HafenCity Hamburg. This gives the buyer a relative amount of peace to consider his development, to determine a good price and to arrange the financing.
The public investment in the total project amounts to €1.3 billion. Private parties are also coughing up another €5 to 5.5 billion. These are substantial amounts and will probably not stop there. After all, building and material costs in Germany have increased rapidly over the past few years. Elbphilharmonie is not the only project that is wrestling with budget overruns, though, at that prestigious location, this is mostly because of other reasons, like the complexity of the design.
The elongated new harbour waterfront expands from west to east and from north to south. Two million square metres of commercial real estate will be added to the inner city, which includes office space for 40,000 new jobs, 60,000 m2 for retail, catering establishments, a cruise terminal, the Science Centre, a university for building engineering, the international maritime museum housed in a beautifully renovated warehouse and, of course, the much discussed Elbphilharmonie. In the meanwhile, 1.1 square kilometres has already been built. The most recent completion was the Sandtorhafen, a harbour for historical ships. The festive opening on the 20th and 21st of September attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors to the city.
Criticism
Of course such a mega project also had some setbacks as well as some opposition. For many months the people of Hamburg have been appalled by the gigantic cost overruns incurred by the Elbphilharmonie, the construction of which was started last year. That is a PPP project for the City of Hamburg together with the German building contractor Hochtief, for a mix of a theatre, a hotel and residences. The mega complex which measures 60,000 m2 comprises a giant undulating glazed build up, on top of a five-storey-high former harbour warehouse, which dates back to the 1960s. The design by the Swiss architectural company Herzog & de Meuron, will become a globally renowned eye-catcher. In terms of its appearance, it is comparable with the Sydney Opera House. Passengers on the Queen Mary 2 will stand agape before their cruise ship docks at the futuristic cruise terminal situated slightly further along, a creation by architect Massimiliano Fuksas. According to the original estimate, the prestige project will cost €187 million, but the latest readjustment indicates that it is more along the lines of €340 million. The overruns cost the project manager Hartmut Wegener his job this autumn.
There has also been criticism about the urban designer plan. Does such a variety of building styles fit in with each other? There are almost seventy buildings, each having their own architectural style, trying to compete for attention, adjacent to the brickwork plainness of the historical Speicherstadt, which forms the boundary between HafenCity and the existing inner city. ‘Absolutely not’, top architect Hadi Teherani lashes out. In a recent interview with the magazine Der Spiegel he describes HafenCity as a repugnant patchwork of ‘Deko-Kitsch’ which clashes with the modest Anglophile elegance of old Hamburg. That is the elegance which remains after the devastating blitzes of the Second World War.
However, tastes differ, always and everywhere. Based on what is still present in HafenCity, many visitors will clearly conclude that the city has made the right choice and that one can say there is a pleasant symbiosis between the old and the new, which is never boring. Der Spiegel, Germany's most respected weekly magazine, will be basing itself in HafenCity. The Spiegelgruppe will occupy 30,000 m2 of office space in the Brooktorkai/ Ericusspitze Quarter, which is now under construction. Other companies, like Unilever Germany, Hochtief, the logistics service provider Kuehne + Nagel and Germanischer Lloyd will also establish their head offices along the trend-setting new waterfront.
