Reuse radar

Athens

Athens counts more than 2,000 abandoned buildings and about 70 it classes as dangerous, but publishes no list; the names sit in council minutes and contracts. The radar shows 14 addresses a community council named in April 2024 and 237 offices mapped on OpenStreetMap, and the largest known empty public building, a block of more than 16,000 m² owned by the Deposits and Loans Fund on Patision street, empty since 30 July 2025.

Vacant office spaceNot yet measured

Empty buildings on record1285 confirmed

On the map396buildings and sites from 5 open sources

Homes potential≈ 545if 30% of empty offices converted

Office figures: No Athens office vacancy figure for 2026 was found; Cushman & Wakefield Proprius reported in March 2025 that planned office developments in greater Athens total 108,050 m² and premises under construction exceed 241,558 m², without a vacancy rate. Homes: our economic model’s conversion engine. Map built 2026-10-09.

Athens city profile Reuse atlas: all of Europe

A tour in 3D

An empty building in Athens, and what it could become

A building checked against today's sources and found empty — a site that could be well suited to the EHC model. A short film: how it could come back to life, with what our conversion check and economic model say it could hold. A potential we spotted, not a plan.

Together, room for ≈ 151 homes for ≈ 331 people — a potential, not a plan.

Deposits and Loans Fund block — Patision, Kaningos and Solomou streetsΠατησίων – Κάνιγγος – Σολωμού, Αθήνα · ≈ 151 homes

activated ground floor
shared rooms
furnished mid-term flats
affordable long-term homes

The map

Every building a record says stands empty, one point per building: filter by type, size and how sure the evidence is, and open one to see who says so. “Opportunities” switches to the co-op lens: public land, conversion potential and projects already under way, every source as its own layer.

The City publishes no list of abandoned or dangerous buildings: its own count (more than 2,000 abandoned, about 70 dangerous) lives in council minutes and contracts on Diavgeia; the one list a person could still mine is the community councils' minutes (a dozen or two addresses each).

Loading map…

0 empty buildings · colour = type, dark ring = confirmed

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

Where to look first

Buildings with evidence that they stand empty — a second source agrees, a public record names them, or we have checked them — ranked by a score you can read: co-op scale, daylight depth, a station nearby, a zone that allows homes, affordable land and an open route in. Checked buildings carry their result; nobody has visited them on site yet. Leerstandsmelder reports join the list when they sit in a large non-residential building and a second source agrees.

Priority	Building	Floor area	Depth	Station	Conversion check	Actions
88	Deposits and Loans Fund block — Patision, Kaningos and Solomou streetsConfirmed empty by EHCOnly as a partner Public building named vacant	16,000 m²	11.1 m	368 m	A fit only

Districts where conversion makes sense

Where empty offices, the right zoning and a working neighbourhood come together — and what could go wrong.

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

Patision, Omonia and Exarchia

The axis from Omonia to the National Archaeological Museum holds the Deposits and Loans Fund's 16,000 m² block and the oldest concentration of abandoned buildings: an unofficial 2014 count found 92 of 267 buildings around Omonia abandoned.

Block of 1968, over 16,000 m², empty since 30 July 2025
Omonia: 92 of 267 buildings abandoned (unofficial count of 2014)

Risk: Tangled ownership, listed buildings and zoning that restricts hotel or housing conversion; the Fund's own plan is a 60-year lease to an investor.

2 sources

Patisia, Rizoupoli and Agios Eleftherios (5th Community)

A community council has named 17 dangerous or ruinous addresses in one decision, and citizen associations list 23 dangerous buildings in this district alone: the densest named cluster outside the centre.

Kavafi 45 slated for clearing and demolition (25 Apr 2024)
23 dangerous buildings in District 5 (Laiki Syspeiromosi survey, May 2025)

Risk: Most are small plots with old houses and workshops; the City is demolishing dangerous buildings under a €4 million tender, so some will go before they could be reused.

2 sources

Psyrri, Metaxourgeio, Gazi and Petralona (3rd District)

Fifteen buildings are collapsing or at risk in the 3rd District, seven in Petralona and six in Gazi, in the streets where listed houses stand abandoned and housing pressure is strongest.

15 buildings collapsing or at risk (survey of Laiki Syspeiromosi)
About 1,600 inspection requests pending for five years in the municipality

Risk: Collapses (Gazi and Thiseio in 2019) make the City cautious; ownership is tangled and 1,600 safety inspections have waited five years.

1 source

To Vima — the building traps Athens hides (2025-05)

Owners and routes in

Who controls the space, and what a housing cooperative can actually do with them.

A door key on a doorstep with a drawn path leading to an open door

City agency

Δήμος Αθηναίων — Building Service and demolition programme

The Building Service declares buildings dangerous after inspection and a three-member committee decides on demolition; a €4 million tender for demolitions is under way. A co-op can offer the City a restoration-for-use scheme for a named dangerous building, or the temporary-use bill the City drafted in 2013–14, to recover costs.

2 sources

Public owner

Public bodies' vacant buildings — Deposits and Loans Fund

The Fund will tender a lease of at least 60 years for its empty block on Patision street; the tender would require the lessee to pay for restoration, and the Fund keeps to the current zoning. A co-op consortium could prepare a bid or ask the Fund for a smaller, housing-led lease before the tender.

1 source

Cretaone — which large property in central Athens is heading for redevelopment (2026-07)

Public owner

Hellenic Public Properties Company (ETAD) and the State's unused portfolio

ETAD, TAIPED and EFKA together hold about 73,000 properties, of which about 4,000 are available for development; ETAD publishes its e-auction properties on its own portal, but its Athens list is nearly empty (one flat today). A co-op can ask ETAD for the Athens portfolio and propose long-lease or social-antiparochi style deals.

2 sources

Signals to watch

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

2026-07-13
A 16,000 m² public block in the centre is heading for a 60-year lease
The Deposits and Loans Fund says its block at Patision, Kaningos and Solomou streets has stood empty since 30 July 2025 and that it will tender a lease of at least 60 years.
1 source
- Cretaone — which large property in central Athens is heading for redevelopment (2026-07)
2025-05-17
More than 2,000 abandoned buildings, a €4 million demolition tender
To Vima counts more than 2,000 recorded abandoned buildings, about 70 dangerous ones and 1,600 inspection requests pending for five years; a €4 million demolition tender is under way.
1 source
- To Vima — the building traps Athens hides (2025-05)
2024-04-25
Community council names 17 dangerous addresses
The Council of the 5th Community asks the services for the stage of characterisation of 22 entries and for the clearing and fencing of Kavafi 45.
1 source
- Δήμος Αθηναίων — Council of the 5th Community, decision on dangerous and ruinous buildings (ΑΔΑ 6ΜΣ7Ω6Μ-ΖΜΑ, 25 Apr 2024) (2024-04)
2024-01-27
diaNEOsis proposes a fund for abandoned listed buildings
A policy paper proposes a State management body and a bank-run restoration fund for abandoned listed buildings; the Athens count it cites exceeds 1,600.
1 source
- Athens Voice — the diaNEOsis study on the abandoned listed buildings of Athens (2024-01)

Sources and freshness

13 sources connected, 1 waiting for access. 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.

Show every source, its licence and when we last read it

Source	Access	Records	Status	Licence
OpenStreetMap disused/abandoned tags and brownfields OpenStreetMap contributors	Open API	133	Live 2026-10-09	ODbL 1.0 (© OpenStreetMap contributors)
Rail, S-Bahn and U-Bahn stations (OpenStreetMap) OpenStreetMap contributors	Open API	scoring	Live 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 download	308 buildings sized	Live 2026-10-09	CC BY-NC 4.0 (heights); footprints from OpenStreetMap and Microsoft: ODbL
Road noise (EU Environmental Noise Directive, Lden) European Environment Agency	Open API	scoring	Live 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 permission	0	Pending 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 download	0	Live 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 download	0	Live 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 API	7	Live 2026-10-09	Copernicus open data (© European Union, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service 2006–2021, EEA)
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 research	0	Live 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 research	0	Live 2026-10-09	Cited publisher per point
Named buildings and sites from EHC research (each with its own source) European Housing Coop research	EHC research	5	Live 2026-10-09	Facts cited to their publishers
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 API	scoring	Live 2026-10-09	ODbL 1.0 (© OpenStreetMap contributors)
Dangerous and ruinous buildings named by the Council of the 5th Community of Athens Δήμος Αθηναίων — Council of the 5th Community (decision ΑΔΑ 6ΜΣ7Ω6Μ-ΖΜΑ on Diavgeia, 25 April 2024)	Open download	14	Live 2026-10-09	Public decision published on Diavgeia (transparency portal); no licence stated — credited to the Municipality of Athens
Office buildings mapped on OpenStreetMap OpenStreetMap contributors (via overpass.openstreetmap.fr)	Open API	237	Live 2026-10-09	ODbL 1.0

What this radar cannot see yet

The City publishes no list of abandoned or dangerous buildings: its own count (more than 2,000 abandoned, about 70 dangerous) lives in council minutes and contracts on Diavgeia; the one list a person could still mine is the community councils' minutes (a dozen or two addresses each).
No open public-property layer: the City's parcel layer holds squares, parks and playgrounds only, and ETAD's portfolio is open only as a feature layer of 92 e-auction properties nationwide (one flat in Athens).
The City's property-tax register (data.gov.gr, 8 Oct 2026) gives use and declared floor area for 656,365 units at 79,750 addresses but has no coordinates and no vacancy flag; a house-number layer would be needed to map it.
Floor area: the City's GeoServer layer c40solarmap (geonode:c40solarmap, 66,661 building polygons with Height, no licence stated) is the only per-building source; the lead can switch it on as a floor source, otherwise the Global Building Atlas.
The aerial is the Hellenic Cadastre's open WMS, watermarked and with no licence stated (its robots.txt answers HTTP 500); the Cadastre's own portal answers a bot wall (HTTP 403), which was not worked around.
Only 14 of the 16 addresses read from the 5th Community's decision are shown (a house number was matched); the rest are street-level only and one is unplaced.

Know an empty building we have missed?

Open data cannot see everything. Tell us about a building in Athens 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

Radars nearby

The other radars in the same country and the nearest beyond. All 134 cities in the atlas

The figure on each card: empty buildings on record.

Bari918 Bucharest112 Catania217 Messina71 Plovdiv46 Podgorica9 Pristina10 Skopje41 Sofia342 Thessaloniki41 Tirana38 Varna56