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Reuse radar

Bochum

Bochum's cadastre flags 180 buildings as unused or ruined (68 large enough to map), and the city keeps a register of suspected problem buildings — 168 entries in August 2023, 13 of them 'problem properties' in late 2025, plus 10 of the city's own buildings listed for information. It already leases plots to community housing projects, and Goerdtstraße 45, a former city depot, is going to a concept tender, and the C&A store on Kortumstraße closed on 29 August 2026 with the marketing chief proposing housing.
Vacant office space5%of the office stock stands empty (the floor area is not published)
Empty buildings on record155and 5 more with an empty shop, flat or floor; of all 160, 10 confirmed, 7 likely
Flagged unused68buildings in the official cadastre; 9 have 3,000 m² or more
Homes potential—not in the economic model’s office data yet

Office figures: Georg Consulting for Bochum Wirtschaftsentwicklung, Büromarktbericht 2025 (market of 2024): stock 1.86 million m², vacancy 5% (space available within three months), take-up 61,784 m²; no vacant area figure is printed. Map built 2026-10-09.

Bochum 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 Bochum: could it become homes, and could the EHC model work there?

Named empty by owners and public records

A building that the owner or a public register records as empty — whole buildings of at least 1,500 m² whose plans suit homes on paper (band A in our conversion check), not ruins and not let for interim use. Each row says who records it empty and when. We have not been to them, and a record can be out of date; those we have confirmed empty ourselves are marked as tour stops.

BuildingFloor areaRecorded empty byActions
Former Bergbau-Berufsgenossenschaft headquarters, Hunscheidtstraße 18 (Wiemelhausen)
former accident-insurance headquarters · Hunscheidtstraße 18, 44789 Bochum (Wiemelhausen) · Berufsgenossenschaft (statutory accident insurance body)
≈ 1,902 m²Stadt Bochum — Antwort der Verwaltung 20260994: Leerstand Hunscheidtstraße
Answer to parliament · European Housing Coop research · 10 Apr 2026

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
75Former Bergbau-Berufsgenossenschaft headquarters, Hunscheidtstraße 18 (Wiemelhausen)Not confirmed yet
Public building named vacant
1,902 m²15.1 m530 mA fit only
60Former city depot, Carolinenglückstraße 27 (Hamme)Not confirmed yet
Public building named vacant · 1 other source nearby
2,238 m²16.6 m1,428 mA fit only
60Unterstr. 66 a
Flagged unused in the cadastre · Allgemein bildende Schule · 1 other source nearby
18,072 m²—852 m—
55Wallbaumweg 73
Flagged unused in the cadastre · Gebäude für Wirtschaft oder Gewerbe · 1 other source nearby
5,976 m²48.9 m654 mA fit only
51Goerdtstraße 45 (former city depot, Altenbochum) — concept tender for community housingConfirmed empty by EHC
Public building named vacant · 1 other source nearby
1,322 m²20.8 m1,093 mA fit only

Homes standing empty

Of 88 Leerstandsmelder reports on the map, 82 sit in a building we can identify — 59 of them homes. Most are single flats or buildings below co-op scale. These are whole buildings of flats that people report empty, ranked by a reactivation score: co-op scale, whether the whole building is empty, how recent the report is, location and land. A building of flats needs no change of use. Reports are public and not checked by us — each card links to its entry on Leerstandsmelder.

ScoreBuildingFloor areaReportedActions
83Hildegardstraße 29
Apartment building · 3 storeys · Whole building
1,028 m²Apr 2022
82Vorm Gruthoff 9 + 11
Apartment building · 3 storeys · Whole building
960 m²Jan 2017
70Herner Straße 131
Apartment building · Whole building
904 m²Dec 2016
63Auf den Holln 1
Detached house · 2 storeys · Extent not stated
1,089 m²May 2026
41Castroper Hellweg 423
Apartment building · Extent not stated
801 m²May 2022
39Dinnendahlstraße 43
Apartment building · 4 storeys · Extent not stated
736 m²Jul 2026

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 (Mitte): Kortumstraße and the BVZ

A closed department-store-size C&A at Kortumstraße 70, the city-owned BVZ and the Musikschule beside the Appolonia-Pfaus-Park are all about to change use, and the council has already decided to award the BVZ site for housing.

  • C&A closed 29 Aug 2026; part of the space to become housing (Bochum Marketing)
  • Rat decision 19 Dec 2024: BVZ site for housing by concept award on a heritable building right
  • Musikschule to be offered to non-profit developers

Risk: The council is split on demolishing the BVZ; the C&A owner is not known.

2 sources

Riemke, Hordel and Grumme (north of the centre)

A cluster of named problem buildings: Haus Budde, Tippelsberger Straße 45, the listed Versöhnungskirche and Hotel Decker.

  • Haus Budde: highest need for action; permits since 27 Nov 2024, no works seen in Jan 2026
  • Versöhnungskirche Hordel: permit for 20 flats since Sept 2024, no start by Sept 2026
  • Tippelsberger Straße 45: empty for many years, owners never contacted

Risk: Several are held by owners who do not act despite permits; the city's register is not public.

3 sources

Wiemelhausen, Altenbochum and Laer (south and east)

The city wants the listed ex-BG headquarters in Wiemelhausen converted to housing, offers the Goerdtstraße 45 depot to community housing, and plans to buy the empty Fronleichnamkirche in Laer.

  • Hunscheidtstraße 18 unused since October 2024, to be sold
  • Goerdtstraße 45: expression of interest May–Jul 2026, concept tender to follow
  • Fronleichnamkirche: last service 2008, purchase planned

Risk: Listing and the owner's plans decide Hunscheidtstraße; the church is earmarked for a community centre.

3 sources

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 Bochum — Liegenschaften (community housing on heritable building rights)

The city allocates plots and, at Goerdtstraße 45, a former depot building to community-led housing projects by concept procedure on a heritable building right (Stiftstraße and Alte Wittener Straße were awarded in 2025–26). The 40% subsidised quota is waived for such projects. Register a project with the Amt für Geoinformation, Liegenschaften und Kataster.

1 source
Public owner

Stadt Bochum — BVZ site and Musikschule

A two-stage concept award on a heritable building right for homes on the BVZ site (council decision of 19 Dec 2024) and an approach to non-profit developers for the Musikschule building. Ask the Amt für Stadtplanung und Wohnen when the first stage opens.

1 source
City agency

Villa Kunterbunt and the city's own register of buildings

The city lists ten of its own buildings in the suspected-properties register and plans to remove them by redevelopment, demolition or sale. The Villa Kunterbunt is offered to its former residents for €1 against a three-year restoration; other city buildings could be offered to co-operatives the same way.

2 sources
Allocation rule

Wohnraumschutzsatzung (housing-protection bylaw, in force since 15 July 2025)

Any flat empty for more than six months must be reported and misuse needs a permit; the city says it began clarifying cases from mid-January 2026. Owners facing a request can be offered a long lease or sale to a co-operative. The bylaw does not cover commercial space or owner-occupied one- and two-family houses.

1 source

Signals to watch

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

  1. 2026-09-17
    No start of works at the Hordel church

    The SPD group in the district council asks whether work began on the listed Versöhnungskirche, which has had a permit for 20 flats since September 2024.

    1 source
  2. 2026-08-29
    C&A leaves Kortumstraße

    The store closed on 29 August; Bochum Marketing wants part of the building to become housing.

    1 source
  3. 2026-08-17
    Goerdtstraße 45 goes to concept tender for community housing

    After an expression-of-interest round in May–July 2026, the administration tells the committees it will run a concept procedure for community-led housing.

    1 source
  4. 2026-07-28
    Cadastre flags 180 buildings

    The July 2026 NRW cadastre records 147 of Bochum's 142,642 buildings as unused and 33 as ruined; 68 have a footprint of at least 150 m².

    1 source
  5. 2026-04-10
    City: ex-BG headquarters to be sold, housing wanted

    Unused since October 2024; listed except the east wing; the city has talked to interested buyers.

    1 source
  6. 2025-12-15
    City offers the cleared Villa Kunterbunt to former residents for €1

    Three years to restore the listed building; talks are exclusive for now.

    1 source
  7. 2025-07-15
    Housing-protection bylaw in force

    Vacancy of more than six months must be reported; Census 2022 counted almost 7,000 empty flats (3.6%), about 3,000 of them for over a year.

    2 sources

Sources and freshness

22 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 API0Live
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 API1Live
2026-10-09
Official public notice (§ 39 ZVG)
OpenStreetMap disused/abandoned tags and brownfields
OpenStreetMap contributors
Open API108Live
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: 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 API407 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 permission88Live
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 API53Live
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 research11Live
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 download68Live
2026-10-09
dl-de/zero-2-0
Administration buildings in the cadastre (ALKIS)
Geobasis NRW — Liegenschaftskataster (ALKIS), OGC API Features 'lika'
Open API86Live
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 API36Live
2026-10-09
dl-de/zero-2-0
Office buildings mapped in OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap contributors (via overpass.openstreetmap.fr)
Open API334Live
2026-10-09
ODbL 1.0
Brownfield land mapped in OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap contributors (via overpass.openstreetmap.fr)
Open API36Live
2026-10-09
ODbL 1.0
Free offices, shops and halls in Bochum on ruhrsite, the Ruhr's commercial property exchange
Business Metropole Ruhr GmbH (Regionalverband Ruhr) with the city's Wirtschaftsförderung — ruhrsite
Open download2Live
2026-10-09
No licence read — the terms of use (Nutzungsbedingungen.pdf) are a scanned PDF without text; used with credit to Business Metropole Ruhr; only address, type, area and availability are kept

What this radar cannot see yet

  • The city's register of suspected problem properties (168 buildings in August 2023) is not public; only counts and some addresses appear in council answers, and owners are named only in non-public parts.
  • Council papers: titles of about 8,000 papers modified since January 2024 were read through the open OParl interface (bochum.ratsinfomanagement.net); documents were read only for titles naming empty buildings. The host's robots.txt asks general crawlers not to fetch PDFs; read under EHC's 8 Oct 2026 policy.
  • Vacancy reports under the housing-protection bylaw are not published.
  • BLB NRW had no offer in Bochum on 9 Oct 2026; the Bistum Essen's property agency lists no Bochum property.
  • The RVR brownfield layer is licensed CC BY-NC and was not used.
  • 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 Bochum 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 recordBielefeld, Germany101empty 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 recordHamburg, Germany524empty buildings on recordHannover, Germany197empty buildings on recordLeipzig, Germany342empty buildings on recordMannheim, Germany82empty buildings on recordMunich, Germany316empty buildings on recordNuremberg, Germany109empty buildings on recordRotterdam, Netherlands35empty buildings on recordStuttgart, Germany175empty buildings on recordUtrecht, Netherlands13empty buildings on recordWuppertal, Germany224empty buildings on record