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Reuse radar

Bielefeld

Bielefeld's cadastre flags 151 buildings as unused or ruined (67 large enough to map), yet the city's electricity-meter method finds only 0.27% of homes (about 450) empty while Census 2022 counted over 3,000 flats empty for more than six months. The largest named empties are privately owned — the 7,500 m² former Dresdner Bank building on Stresemannstraße, empty for almost 15 years, and the six-storey former IBM-Haus — and the Karstadt site is to be demolished for a new quarter. On 21 September 2026 the administration put a draft bylaw to the council requiring owners to report vacancy over six months.
Vacant office spaceNot yet measured
Empty buildings on record101and 3 more with an empty shop, flat or floor; of all 104, 3 confirmed, 6 likely
Flagged unused67buildings in the official cadastre; 5 have 3,000 m² or more
Homes potential—not in the economic model’s office data yet

Office figures: No published Bielefeld office vacancy figure was found (the broker reports read cover the top-7 cities); the city's economic development agency WEGE and local brokers may hold one. Map built 2026-10-09.

Bielefeld city profileReuse atlas: all of Europe

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.

Loading map…

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

Check any building in Bielefeld: 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.

PriorityBuildingFloor areaDepthStationConversion checkActions
37Brackweder Straße 32
Flagged unused in the cadastre · Nach Quellenlage nicht zu spezifizieren · 4 other sources nearby
6,936 m²30.6 m1,942 mC fit only
33Former IBM-Haus, Am Wellbach 4 (Baumheide)Not confirmed yet
Distressed or stranded (named)
6,363 m²20 m2,726 mA 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

City centre (Bahnhofsviertel and Altstadt)

The Karstadt site (29,000 m² gross), the 7,500 m² former Dresdner Bank building and the former NW publishing house all lie within a kilometre of the station, on streets where vacancy is rising.

  • Stresemannstraße south side: 80 of 160 m empty (3 Oct 2026)
  • Karstadt site: sale to Sahle Wohnen (Dec 2025), demolition and new quarter (Apr 2026)
  • NW publishing house to be demolished for a new quarter (Aug 2025)

Risk: Owners are private and plan demolition or have no plan; Stresemannstraße's south side is 50% vacant.

2 sources

Heepen / Baumheide

The former IBM-Haus, six floors of offices from 1976, stands fenced and empty.

  • Am Wellbach 4: about 200 jobs once, empty and overgrown (May 2023)
  • No demolition application on file (May 2023)

Risk: The owner is not named and it was last reported in 2023.

1 source

Schildesche / Gellershagen (Bültmannshof)

A neglected district centre with a former grocery store described as completely run down.

  • Former Nah&Frisch / Konsum / Coop building neglected, nothing happening (16 Nov 2025)

Risk: Ownership and any city plan are unknown.

1 source

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
Public owner

Stadt Bielefeld — Immobilienservicebetrieb (ISB)

The city sells built properties it no longer needs by public bidding or application procedure and publishes them on its 'Städtische Immobilienangebote' page. On 9 Oct 2026 the page listed no property. Ask the ISB (Grundstückshandel) for upcoming disposals; the page also points to Bielefeld's housing companies for their disposals and to WEGE for commercial and industrial land.

2 sources

Signals to watch

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

  1. 2026-10-03
    Stresemannstraße vacancy: 50% on the south side

    After dm left, 80 of 160 metres stand empty; the former Dresdner Bank building (7,500 m²) has been empty almost 15 years.

    1 source
  2. 2026-09-21
    Draft vacancy bylaw before the council

    Vacancy over six months would have to be reported.

    1 source
  3. 2026-07-28
    Cadastre flags 151 buildings

    The July 2026 NRW cadastre records 146 of Bielefeld's 135,304 buildings as unused and 5 as ruined; 67 have a footprint of at least 150 m².

    1 source
  4. 2026-04-28
    Karstadt site: design chosen, demolition planned

    A selection panel recommended the design by caspar. (Cologne) for a new quarter with a hotel, senior flats and service apartments.

    1 source
  5. 2025-12-04
    Sahle Wohnen buys the Karstadt building

    About 8,800 m² of land and 29,000 m² of gross floor area, bought from Zamberk Real Estate Ventures.

    1 source
  6. 2025-03-07
    Two vacancy counts, 450 versus 3,000 flats

    The meter method gives 0.27% (about 450 flats); Census 2022 counted over 3,000 flats empty for more than six months and about 2,300 for more than twelve.

    1 source

Sources and freshness

20 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
SourceAccessRecordsStatusLicence
Federal property for sale (BImA)
Bundesanstalt für Immobilienaufgaben (BImA)
Live sales of federal buildings and land (the open API behind the BImA property search; rentals, garages and parking left out). A disposal is an open route in; it does not say the building stands empty.
Open API1Live
2026-10-09
No licence stated — public sale offers, credited to the BImA
Forced auctions of commercial property (zvg-portal)
Justizportal des Bundes und der Länder
Non-residential objects only; shown until the hearing date. Hamburg courts do not publish here.
Open API0Live
2026-10-09
Official public notice (§ 39 ZVG)
OpenStreetMap disused/abandoned tags and brownfields
OpenStreetMap contributors
Open API92Live
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 download28 buildings sizedLive
2026-10-09
CC BY-NC 4.0 (heights); footprints from OpenStreetMap and Microsoft: ODbL
Heights: 3D building models LoD2 (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Bezirksregierung Köln, Geobasis NRW
© Geobasis NRW (Datenlizenz Deutschland – Zero – Version 2.0). The models record no storeys, so the eaves height (lowest roof edge − ground, tallest part) is turned into storeys. Read per building from the state’s OGC API (CityJSON); the same model as the 1 km CityGML tiles on opengeodata.nrw.de. robots.txt: none on ogc-api.nrw.de (9 Oct 2026).
Open API600 buildings sizedLive
2026-10-09
Datenlizenz Deutschland – Zero 2.0
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 permission2Live
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 download0Live
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 API73Live
2026-10-09
Copernicus open data (© European Union, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service 2006–2021, EEA)
Property companies in insolvency, at the property their purpose names
Insolvency courts (Insolvenzbekanntmachungen), structured by OpenRegister
Companies in preliminary or opened insolvency proceedings whose registered business purpose speaks of land or buildings (scripts/reuse/import-insolvencies.ts, OpenRegister API — the portal itself disallows automated access, so it is never fetched). A company is placed at the street its purpose names; the rest are leads in the admin. An insolvent owner signals a possible sale, not vacancy: weak evidence.
Open API0Live
2026-10-09
Official notices (§ 5 UrhG, source credited), via the OpenRegister API
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
EHC research5Live
2026-10-09
Facts cited to their publishers
Commercial listings (ImmoScout24 / immowelt)
Scout24 / AVIV
Blocked to automated access; we do not work around that. Request drafted in docs/reuse-radar/outreach/.
Asking for permission0PendingProprietary — API or data partnership requested
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)
Buildings the cadastre flags unused or ruined (ALKIS)
Geobasis NRW — Liegenschaftskataster (ALKIS Grundrissdaten, NAS)
Open download67Live
2026-10-09
dl-de/zero-2-0
Buildings for public purposes in the cadastre (ALKIS)
Geobasis NRW — Liegenschaftskataster (ALKIS), OGC API Features 'lika'
Open API413Live
2026-10-09
dl-de/zero-2-0
Office buildings mapped in OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap contributors (via overpass.openstreetmap.fr)
Open API197Live
2026-10-09
ODbL 1.0
Brownfield land mapped in OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap contributors (via overpass.openstreetmap.fr)
Open API56Live
2026-10-09
ODbL 1.0

What this radar cannot see yet

  • No official list of empty or problem buildings is published; the civil-society group Pro Grün runs a map of vacancies and building gaps (50 entries at launch in July 2021; a later local headline says more than 200) that deliberately shows positions offset so that buildings cannot be identified — a lead for a person to ask.
  • Council papers: Bielefeld's council information system (SessionNet) has no open interface and its search is a form, so papers naming empty buildings could not be mined.
  • The ISB's page of city property offers was empty on 9 Oct 2026; BLB NRW has no offer in Bielefeld; the former British housing estates (Sperberstraße, Musikerviertel) belong to the federal property agency and are left out as former military sites.
  • Church closures (Kreuzkirche, Liboriuskirche) are demolished or being demolished rather than empty.
  • Office vacancy: no published figure was found.
  • Floor area: the cadastre records no storeys; the NRW 3D building model (LoD2) still needs an adapter.

Know an empty building we have missed?

Open data cannot see everything. Tell us about a building in Bielefeld 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 134 cities in the atlas

The figure on each card: empty buildings on record.

Amsterdam, Netherlands60empty buildings on recordBerlin, Germany1,875empty buildings on recordBochum, Germany155empty buildings on recordBonn, Germany141empty buildings on recordBremen, Germany205empty buildings on recordCologne, Germany374empty buildings on recordDortmund, Germany304empty buildings on recordDresden, Germany341empty buildings on recordDuisburg, Germany141empty buildings on recordDüsseldorf, Germany46empty buildings on recordEindhoven, Netherlands3empty buildings on recordEssen, Germany224empty buildings on recordFrankfurt am Main, Germany208empty buildings on recordGroningen, Netherlands10empty buildings on recordHamburg, Germany524empty buildings on recordHannover, Germany197empty buildings on recordLeipzig, Germany342empty buildings on recordMannheim, Germany82empty buildings on recordMunich, Germany316empty buildings on recordNuremberg, Germany109empty buildings on recordStuttgart, Germany175empty buildings on recordUtrecht, Netherlands13empty buildings on recordWuppertal, Germany224empty buildings on record