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Reuse radar

Amsterdam

Amsterdam's office market has split: offices at the stations are scarce, while vacancy rises in single-use office parks such as Sloterdijk and in older buildings in the centre, and the volume of planned office conversions more than halved in 2024. The city itself publishes which of its own buildings stand in vacancy management — more than a hundred units, among them several empty schools — and is the main allocator of plots for housing co-operatives.
An empty building in Amsterdam with homes, balconies and neighbours drawn onto it in ink
Empty buildings on record
69
and 88 more with an empty shop, flat or floor
Vacant office space
613,000 m²
9.6% of the stock
Homes potential
≈ 1,210
if 30% of empty offices converted

Office figures: JLL, Amsterdam Q2 2026 — 9.6% vacancy applied to about 6.39 million m² of offices (derived from Knight Frank/NL real estate: 990,000 m² available = 15.5% of stock at end-2024); vacant area = stock × rate, an estimate across two publishers and dates. Homes: our economic model’s conversion engine. Map built 2026-10-09.

In 3D, from today’s sources — a potential we spotted, not a plan.

Empty buildings in Amsterdam

One point per building, from public records, open data and cited reports. Filter by type, size and how sure the evidence is; open one to see who says so and whether it could become homes.

The national building register (BAG) has an 'out of use' status, but it is almost never set in Amsterdam (no buildings inside the city on 6 Oct 2026); BAG records lawful use, not occupancy.

Loading map…
Colour = type of building named officially likely reported
Missing a building?

Check any building in Amsterdam: could it become homes, and could the EHC model work there?

5 more buildings in Amsterdam reported in the news, not yet on the map

The articles do not give an address we could place, so these have no pin yet. From news reports, summed up in our own words with a link to each article — not checked on site by EHC.

  • Maritim Hotel — reported empty · formerly hotel · owner: Union InvestmentThe 600-room hotel tower in Noord stands unused after the operator withdrew; the owner says homes are not permitted there. AT5 (2026-01-22)
  • Office building A.J. Ernststraat, A.J. Ernststraat — reported empty · formerly office · Company-ownedSquatters occupied an office empty for at least two years; a developer plans a tower with 59 rental flats on the site. NH Nieuws (2025-11-25)
  • PC Art Paviljoen — reported emptyA vacant former funeral centre in Amsterdam-Oost is hosting temporary art and performance projects about death and mourning until late 2025. Het Parool (Amsterdam) (2024-11-11)
  • Retail ensemble opposite Amsterdam Centraal — reported conversion planned · formerly retailApproved plans turn the iconic shop buildings facing the central station into 3,000 m2 of offices and 300 m2 of housing. PropertyNL (2025-03-14)
  • Toorop location (former Delta Lloyd / NN / DNB office) — reported conversion planned · formerly office · 100,000 m² · owner: BreevastThe office on the Amstel used successively by insurers and the central bank becomes a 100,000 m2 complex with over 600 rental homes. PropertyNL (2025-03-10)

Where conversion makes sense, and who to talk to

The districts where empty space, the right zoning and a working neighbourhood come together, and the owners and programmes that open a door. 613,000 m² of offices stand empty (9.6% of the stock).

A hand outlining a neighbourhood on a city map, with small houses drawn inside

Overamstel — Weespertrekvaart and Wenckebachweg

The city owns a row of business units on the H.J.E. Wenckebachweg that it holds empty in vacancy management until the area becomes a mixed neighbourhood of about 570 homes.

  • 49 city-owned units in vacancy management, 11,324 m² lettable (city register, Oct 2026)
  • First housing tender, plots 6 and 7: 163–181 homes, published 6 May 2026
  • Housing plan Weespertrekvaart Oost blocks 10 and 11: 339 homes, start planned 2030

Risk: The units are being cleared for new building, plot by plot; reuse would have to be argued as an interim or alternative to demolition.

3 sources

Sloterdijk and Teleport

A single-use office district where the provincial monitor finds much of the region’s vacancy; owners of offices in Teleport must report vacancy after six months.

  • Named with Schiphol-Rijk as an area with much vacancy (Monitor Plabeka, Sept 2025)
  • Sloterdijk Centrum land-development project covers 61.7 ha
  • 59 office-only buildings with a unit ≥1,000 m² in Westpoort (BAG)

Risk: Noise and port-related zoning around the station limit where homes are allowed; much of the area is planned as new build rather than conversion.

3 sources

Amstel III and the H-buurt (Zuidoost)

The 1980s office park between the ArenA and the Bijlmer is being turned into a mixed neighbourhood, and the neighbouring H-buurt has a plot reserved for a housing co-operative.

  • Two land-development projects, Paasheuvelweg (53.5 ha) and Bullewijk (69.6 ha)
  • Office vacancy reporting duty applies to all of Amstel III (Leegstandverordening 2022)
  • Co-op selection for H-buurt Midden under way (March 2026)

Risk: Large, deep office floor plates; many owners are investors who prefer demolition and new build.

3 sources

Nieuw-West (Slotermeer, Geuzenveld, Slotervaart)

The largest share of empty city-owned floor space after Overamstel is here, mainly post-war school buildings, in neighbourhoods where the city already reserves plots for co-operatives.

  • 10 city-owned units in vacancy management, 14,254 m² (city register, Oct 2026)
  • Empty schools at Slotermeerlaan 103 (3,423 m²), Herman Poortstraat 17 (2,703 m²) and Naaldwijkstraat 45 (4,431 m²)
  • Co-op plots announced in the Van Deysselbuurt and for De Bundel (132 homes, half for local residents)

Risk: Some schools may be held for future pupil numbers or for demolition; the register does not say why a unit is empty.

2 sources

Signals to watch

Decisions, auctions and closures that change what becomes available, and when.

  1. 2026-07Office vacancy rises again

    JLL puts Amsterdam office vacancy at 9.6% in Q2 2026 as supply grows.

    1 source
  2. 2026-05-06First tender in Weespertrekvaart Oost

    The city tenders plots 6 and 7 for 163–181 homes in a business area it is turning into a neighbourhood of about 570 homes.

    1 source
  3. 2026-03-03Co-operatives far behind target

    About 708 co-operative homes in 13 buildings are completed, under construction or in advanced development — about a tenth of the 7,000 the 2019 action plan aimed for.

    1 source
4 earlier signals
  1. 2026-02-11
    City puts office vacancy at 500,000 m²

    The city's Office Strategy 2026 puts vacant office space at about 500,000 m² (start of 2025), concentrated in single-use areas such as Amstel III, Sloterdijk-Noord and Nieuw-West, and promises a vacancy-and-match quick scan per priority zone and a study of a vacancy fine.

    1 source
  2. 2026-01-19
    National co-operative housing fund

    €60.6 million revolving fund at SVn; first finance applications from the end of 2026.

    1 source
  3. 2025-11-25
    Empty office squatted in Zuid

    An office on the A.J. Ernststraat, empty for at least two years and due to make way for a 59-flat tower, was squatted.

    1 source
  4. 2025-09-09
    Conversion plans halve

    Planned office-to-other-use conversions in Amsterdam fell from 399,000 m² (1 Jan 2024) to 178,500 m² (1 Jan 2025) while vacancy rose most of any MRA sub-region.

    1 source

Sources, and what we cannot see

27 sources connected. We only use data we may lawfully reuse; where a publisher blocks automated access we do not work around it — a person downloads it, or we ask for permission.

Every source, its licence and when we last read it
SourceAccessRecordsStatusLicence
OpenStreetMap disused/abandoned tags and brownfields
OpenStreetMap contributors
Open API63Live
2026-10-09
ODbL 1.0 (© OpenStreetMap contributors)
Rail, S-Bahn and U-Bahn stations (OpenStreetMap)
OpenStreetMap contributors
Open APIscoringLive
2026-10-09
ODbL 1.0 (© OpenStreetMap contributors)
Building heights: GlobalBuildingAtlas (TU Munich)
Zhu, X. X., Chen, S., Zhang, F., Shi, Y., Wang, Y. (2025), Technical University of Munich
GlobalBuildingAtlas: an open global and complete dataset of building polygons, heights and LoD1 3D models. Earth System Science Data 17(12), 6647–6668, doi:10.5194/essd-17-6647-2025. Read from the Parquet copy on Source Cooperative. Satellite-derived heights (typically 1.5–3 m error in Europe), turned into storeys with storey heights fitted on Berlin; used only where no register or official 3D model sizes the building.
Open download25 buildings sizedLive
2026-10-09
CC BY-NC 4.0 (heights); footprints from OpenStreetMap and Microsoft: ODbL
Heights and floor areas: 3DBAG and the BAG register
3DBAG (TU Delft 3D geoinformation, 3DGI); Kadaster (BAG via PDOK)
© 3DBAG by tudelft3d and 3DGI. The usable floor area of the units in each building (BAG verblijfsobjecten) where it has units, else storeys from the 70th-percentile roof height.
Open API1,394 buildings sizedLive
2026-10-09
CC BY 4.0 (3DBAG); CC0 (BAG)
Road noise (EU Environmental Noise Directive, Lden)
European Environment Agency
Open APIscoringLive
2026-10-09
EEA standard re-use policy (attribution)
Leerstandsmelder.de — public reports of empty buildings
Leerstandsmelder (Gängeviertel e.V., Hamburg)
Shown while we ask Leerstandsmelder for permission. Reports since 2016 only, with the address, the month reported and a link to each entry; not checked by EHC. Each point says when a report has since been marked demolished, lived in, in interim use or rebuilt on Leerstandsmelder, and the owner type the reporter gave (private owners are never named).
Asking for permission37Live
2026-10-09
Credited to Leerstandsmelder.de; asking for permission
Open-ended property funds: buildings they report partly empty
Open-ended real-estate funds (each point names its fund and report)
German and Austrian open-ended public property funds must list every property with its vacancy (or letting) rate in their annual and half-year reports. scripts/reuse/import-fund-reports.ts reads those lists; properties at 10 % vacancy or more are shown, those at 25 % or more count as evidence.
Open download3Live
2026-10-09
Published fund report (KAGB / KARBV property list), cited per point
Co-working spaces, department stores, banks, hotels and cinemas listed as permanently closed
Overture Maps Foundation (closure data: BrightQuery company records)
Places with operating_status "permanently_closed" in the monthly Overture release, read by scripts/reuse/import-overture-closures.ts and matched to the building they sit in. A closed business is usually one unit; names are shown only for companies, never for sole traders.
Open download0Live
2026-10-09
CDLA Permissive 2.0 (Overture Maps Foundation)
Land without current use and stalled construction, mapped from satellite imagery (Copernicus Urban Atlas 2006–2018)
European Environment Agency — Copernicus Land Monitoring Service
Urban Atlas class 13400 (brownfields, demolition sites and gaps in the built-up area, 0.25 ha and up) compared across the 2006, 2012 and 2018 editions, so each plot says how long it has stood unused; plus construction sites (13300) already under way in 2012, and 2012 construction sites left unused by 2018. Read from the EEA's open ArcGIS services, the same way in every radar city. The 2021 edition (Copernicus Data Space) drops plots built on since 2018 where scripts/reuse/import-urban-atlas-2021.ts has been run. Points are context, never evidence of vacancy.
Open API72Live
2026-10-09
Copernicus open data (© European Union, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service 2006–2021, EEA)
Church buildings no longer used for worship (Reliwiki)
Reliwiki — Dutch database of religious buildings (volunteers), found through Wikidata
Every religious building in the city that Wikidata links to a Reliwiki page (P8897); scripts/reuse/import-reliwiki.ts reads the page (live, or its newest Wayback Machine snapshot when reliwiki.nl is down, as on 7 Oct 2026). Category "Buiten Gebruik" with no current use = empty; with another use = already converted (a precedent). Reliwiki states no licence: shown with credit and a link to each page (decision 6 Oct 2026), off on request.
EHC research27Live
2026-10-09
No licence stated — credited and linked per building (Wikidata links: CC0)
Stalled construction and buildings held by insolvent developers
EHC research (dated press and court sources per point)
Signa, Adler/Consus and other developer insolvencies since 2022 and stalled sites, each with its latest dated status (src/scripts/data/reuse/stalled-projects.json; news leads from scripts/reuse/mine-news.ts are reviewed before they join).
EHC research0Live
2026-10-09
Cited publisher per point
Church buildings the dioceses and regional churches plan to give up
Catholic dioceses and Protestant regional churches (their building plans), via EHC research
Buildings a church body’s published building plan or recent reporting names as to be given up, without church funding, for sale or lease, or profaned (src/scripts/data/reuse/church-plans.json and brussels-churches.json).
EHC research0Live
2026-10-09
Cited publisher per point
Named buildings and sites from EHC research (each with its own source)
European Housing Coop research
Includes the library’s public lighthouse conversions (src/scripts/data/reuse/lighthouses.json), shown under "Already converting" with a link to their library page.
EHC research22Live
2026-10-09
Facts cited to their publishers
Listed buildings: Rijksmonumenten
Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (via PDOK)
National monuments as outlines (INSPIRE protected sites). Municipal monuments are not in this register.
Open APIscoringLive
2026-10-09
CC BY 4.0
Year built: BAG building register
Kadaster (Basisregistratie Adressen en Gebouwen, via PDOK)
The original construction year (bouwjaar) of the BAG building a record sits in.
Open APIscoringLive
2026-10-09
CC0 1.0
Year built and listing: OpenStreetMap building tags
OpenStreetMap contributors
start_date / construction_date and heritage / listed_status of the OpenStreetMap outline a record is matched to, where no register answers. Read with the outline match, not a separate query.
Open APIscoringLive
2026-10-09
ODbL 1.0 (© OpenStreetMap contributors)
City-owned units in vacancy management
Gemeente Amsterdam — Directie Gemeentelijk Vastgoed
Open API127Live
2026-10-09
Public (City of Amsterdam open data, terms of use "public")
Buildings owned by the City of Amsterdam
Gemeente Amsterdam — Directie Gemeentelijk Vastgoed
Open API889Live
2026-10-09
Public (City of Amsterdam open data, terms of use "public")
School buildings the city records as empty (school-accommodation register)
Gemeente Amsterdam — Directie Maatschappelijke Voorzieningen (onderwijshuisvesting)
Open API2Live
2026-10-09
Public (City of Amsterdam open data, api.data.amsterdam.nl); no licence named in the dataset — used with credit to the City of Amsterdam
Schools with empty classrooms (school-accommodation register)
Gemeente Amsterdam — Directie Maatschappelijke Voorzieningen (onderwijshuisvesting)
Open API12Live
2026-10-09
Public (City of Amsterdam open data, api.data.amsterdam.nl); no licence named in the dataset — used with credit to the City of Amsterdam
Office-only buildings with a unit of 1,000 m² or more (BAG)
Kadaster — Basisregistratie Adressen en Gebouwen (via PDOK)
Open API500Live
2026-10-09
CC0 1.0
Buildings with a demolition permit granted (BAG)
Kadaster — Basisregistratie Adressen en Gebouwen (via PDOK)
Open API93Live
2026-10-09
CC0 1.0
Land-development projects (GREX)
Gemeente Amsterdam
Open API140Live
2026-10-09
No licence stated; published openly (terms of use: not government-only, not pay-per-use)
Housing construction plans (public set)
Gemeente Amsterdam
Open API956Used, not shown
2026-10-09
CC BY (Creative Commons, Naamsvermelding)
Brownfield land (OpenStreetMap)
OpenStreetMap contributors
Open API48Live
2026-10-09
ODbL 1.0
Buildings named in the news (each with its article)
Local and national press, read by EHC
Buildings the news reports empty, for sale or to let, to be demolished or being converted (src/scripts/data/reuse/news-building-leads.json; rules in src/lib/reuse/news-layer.ts). A report that names a building already on the map is shown on its card instead of a second point; one an open source contradicted, or that says the building is in use, is left out. Not checked on site.
EHC research24Live
2026-10-14
Facts with a link to the article; the one-line summary is ours — no article text is republished
Probable era: estimated from a street photo (Panoramax, Mapillary, Google Street View)
Panoramax and Mapillary contributors; Google Street View (research use agreed with Google, 14 Oct 2026); estimate by EHC with a vision model
Where no register dates a building: its era read from a Panoramax or Mapillary photo looking at it — Google Street View only where no open photo answers (scripts/reuse/estimate-photo-eras.ts), only when the building is clearly visible and the model is confident, and only as “before 1945” or “1945 or later” — the split it got right for 89% of buildings with a register year in Amsterdam and Paris, and 89% from Street View pictures alone (photo-eras/calibration.json). An estimate: a sentence in the conversion check, never points.
Open APIscoringLive
2026-10-14
Open photos CC BY-SA 4.0 or Licence Ouverte 2.0 (per picture); Street View read for research only, never stored or shown; only the estimated era is published, never a photo

What this radar cannot see yet

  • The national building register (BAG) has an 'out of use' status, but it is almost never set in Amsterdam (no buildings inside the city on 6 Oct 2026); BAG records lawful use, not occupancy.
  • The city’s register of reported vacant offices (Leegstandverordening) is not public, and broker vacancy by building is paid data (Kantorenmonitor).
  • The city's council papers are now read through the Open Raadsinformatie API, but no written answer since 2024 lists empty buildings by address; a report on which empty city buildings could house homeless people (motion 591) was still pending in May 2026.
  • Seven city-owned units in vacancy management have no location in the open data (the two schools among them are placed here by hand); the detailed building table (gebouwobjecten_uitgebreid) is restricted.
  • The school-accommodation register records empty teaching space, not empty buildings: welfare and community buildings in it are left out because the register counts all of their space as "empty" whenever no school uses it.
  • There is no open register of empty homes; empty residential buildings are not on this radar.

Know an empty building we have missed?

Open data cannot see everything. Tell us about a building in Amsterdam that stands empty or barely used; once we have checked it, it joins the map under “Reported by visitors (checked)”.

A phone held up to photograph an empty shopfront, with a map pin drawn above it

We publish the address, the kind of building and your description once we have checked it — never your email. Please do not name the people who own or live in a building.

Radars nearby

The other radars in the same country and the nearest beyond. All 149 cities in the atlas

The figure on each card: empty buildings on record.

Antwerp, Belgium308empty buildings on recordBrussels, Belgium97empty buildings on recordDuisburg, Germany147empty buildings on recordEindhoven, Netherlands10empty buildings on recordEssen, Germany225empty buildings on recordGelsenkirchen, Germany97empty buildings on recordGhent, Belgium37empty buildings on recordGroningen, Netherlands15empty buildings on recordMönchengladbach, Germany192empty buildings on recordRotterdam, Netherlands50empty buildings on recordThe Hague, Netherlands49empty buildings on recordUtrecht, Netherlands22empty buildings on record