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Reuse radar

Duisburg

Duisburg's cadastre flags 58 buildings as unused or ruined (41 large enough to map), and the city's electricity-meter count found 12,684 homes disconnected in 2021 — 5.1% of the 247,000 households counted, 11,010 of them for six months or more, mostly in Marxloh, Meiderich and Hochfeld. The 30,000 m² former Galeria store in the centre has stood empty since 2023, and the burnt-out St. Barbara hospital in Neumühl is fenced off by city order.
Vacant office space107,000 m²4.6% of the stock stands empty
Empty buildings on record141and 9 more with an empty shop, flat or floor; of all 150, 14 confirmed, 7 likely
Flagged unused41buildings in the official cadastre; 7 have 3,000 m² or more
Homes potential—not in the economic model’s office data yet

Office figures: Duisburg Business & Innovation (DBI) and the city, Immobilienmarkt 2025: stock about 2.31 million m², about 107,000 m² available within three months (4.6%), below the Ruhr average of 5.3%; the report says structural vacancy sits in older buildings that need refurbishment. Map built 2026-10-09.

Duisburg city profileReuse atlas: all of Europe

A tour in 3D

An empty building in Duisburg, 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 ≈ 12 homes — a potential, not a plan.

  1. Gertrudenstraße 44–46, Marxloh (use banned in March 2026)Gertrudenstraße 44 and 46, 47169 Duisburg (Marxloh) · ≈ 12 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.

Loading map…

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

Check any building in Duisburg: 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
54Gertrudenstraße 44–46, Marxloh (use banned in March 2026)Confirmed empty by EHC
Distressed or stranded (named)
1,548 m²13.6 m3,456 mA fit only
53Beckstraße 5, 7, Bonhoefferstraße 5–19 (ungerade), Goerdelerstraße 15–27 (ungerade), 28, Stauffenbergstraße 13, 15, 47178 Duisburg
Fund building with empty space · W (94,2), A, K · 3 storeys
5,253 m²10.1 m3,175 mA fit only
53Coburger Straße 7–19 (ungerade), Obere Holtener Straße 41– 49 (ungerade), 47169 Duisburg
Fund building with empty space · 2 storeys
3,633 m²13.4 m2,880 mA fit only
47Elisenstr. 45
Flagged unused in the cadastre · Gebäude für Wirtschaft oder Gewerbe · 1 other source nearby
5,499 m²29.4 m2,645 mB fit only
46Gut Böckum (moated castle), Huckingen
Distressed or stranded (named)
2,770 m²—725 m—
45Dörnbergstr. 4
Flagged unused in the cadastre · Wohngebäude · 1 other source nearby
6,564 m²21.5 m1,736 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

Marxloh and Hamborn

Duisburg's highest share of disconnected homes (741 of 8,851 households in 2021), a city task force closing unsafe houses, and two church sites on offer at Beeck and Marxloh.

  • Marxloh: 741 homes disconnected in 2021, 8.4% of households
  • Taskforce Problemimmobilien closed three of five inspected houses on 16 Mar 2026
  • St. Barbara hospital site: entry banned after a 2021 fire; Bebauungsplan 1244 adopted 1 Jul 2019

Risk: Many 'problem houses' are overcrowded and under court administration; the city's list is not public and closures displace residents.

2 sources

City centre (Dellviertel and Altstadt)

The 30,000 m² former Galeria building and car park stand empty beside a centre where 6.8–7.3% of homes had no electricity meter in use in 2021.

  • Former Galeria Kaufhof closed in 2023, still without tenant in March 2024
  • Dellviertel 6.8%, Altstadt 7.3% of households disconnected (2021)
  • City applied for state vacancy funding in 2023

Risk: The building is privately owned by a foreign-registered company and the city has no power to force a use.

2 sources

Hochfeld and Hochheide (the 'White Giants')

The city bought high-rise blocks on Ottostraße in 2018 to rehouse tenants and clear them; the third of six towers was blown up in July 2025 after standing empty since 2020, and Hochfeld has 7.4% of homes disconnected.

  • Third 'Weißer Riese' demolished 27 Jul 2025, empty since July 2020 (160 flats)
  • Hochfeld: 623 homes disconnected in 2021, 7.4% of households
  • City bought the third Ottostraße block in September 2018

Risk: The neighbourhood is a social hotspot and state-funded demolition, not conversion, is the city's chosen route; ownership of the remaining towers is mixed.

2 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
City agency

Stadt Duisburg — Taskforce Problemimmobilien and city purchases

The city closes unsafe houses (Marxloh, March 2026) and has bought high-rise blocks to clear them (Ottostraße, 2018). Houses under court administration or facing a closure order are the first to ask about; the city's own interest is clearance, so a co-operative should arrive with a refurbishment concept and finance.

2 sources
Private owner

Owner of the former Galeria Kaufhof (city centre)

A privately owned 30,000 m² building with no tenant for three years. The city's agency has floated retail, offices and housing together; a co-operative could take the upper floors on a long lease or buy part of the building, supported by the federal 'Gewerbe zu Wohnen' grant.

1 source
Subsidy

Federal programme 'Gewerbe zu Wohnen'

From July 2026 the federal government pays up to 30% of eligible costs, at most €30,000 a flat, for turning heated non-residential buildings into homes (Efficiency House 85 EE standard; apply before ordering works). Fits offices, shops and parish buildings.

1 source

Signals to watch

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

  1. 2026-10-06
    Galeria files for insolvency again

    The fourth Galeria insolvency in six years leaves the Forum Duisburg branch open for now; the former Galeria building on Düsseldorfer Straße, closed since 2023, is mentioned as still empty.

    1 source
  2. 2026-07-28
    Cadastre flags 58 buildings unused or ruined

    The July 2026 edition of the NRW cadastre records 55 of Duisburg's 175,666 buildings as unused and 3 as ruined; 41 have a footprint of at least 150 m².

    1 source
  3. 2026-04-01
    Federal grant for converting non-residential buildings

    'Gewerbe zu Wohnen' offers up to €30,000 a flat from July 2026; €300 million for 2026.

    1 source
  4. 2026-03-17
    Three Marxloh houses closed

    The city's task force banned use of Gertrudenstraße 44 and 46 and Pestalozzistraße 9 after an inspection of five buildings; 23 people, 12 of them minors, were placed in emergency housing.

    1 source
  5. 2025-07-27
    Third 'White Giant' blown up in Hochheide

    A 63 m tower with 160 flats, empty since July 2020, was demolished; three of the six towers have now gone.

    1 source
  6. 2025-03-05
    Listed moated castle Gut Böckum put up for sale

    After years of dispute with the city over its decay, the owner decided in February 2025 to sell.

    1 source

Sources and freshness

21 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 API0Live
2026-10-09
Official public notice (§ 39 ZVG)
OpenStreetMap disused/abandoned tags and brownfields
OpenStreetMap contributors
Open API139Live
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 download13 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 API273 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 permission0Live
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 download14Live
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 API90Live
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 research7Live
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 download41Live
2026-10-09
dl-de/zero-2-0
Administration buildings in the cadastre (ALKIS)
Geobasis NRW — Liegenschaftskataster (ALKIS), OGC API Features 'lika'
Open API64Live
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 API33Live
2026-10-09
dl-de/zero-2-0
Office buildings mapped in OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap contributors (via overpass.openstreetmap.fr)
Open API244Live
2026-10-09
ODbL 1.0
Brownfield land mapped in OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap contributors (via overpass.openstreetmap.fr)
Open API34Live
2026-10-09
ODbL 1.0

What this radar cannot see yet

  • No open list of empty buildings: flat vacancy is published only as district totals from Stadtwerke Duisburg's disconnected meters (latest open year 2021), and the city's problem-house database is not public.
  • Council papers: Duisburg's council information system (SessionNet) has no open interface and its search is a form, so papers naming empty buildings could not be mined.
  • BLB NRW (the state's property company) had no offer in Duisburg on 9 Oct 2026; its three current offers are in Essen, Hamm and Bonn.
  • The cadastre flag is partial and mixes sheds and halls with real vacancies; owners are not in the open data.
  • Floor area: the cadastre records no storeys; the NRW 3D building model (LoD2, OGC API 3dg) gives heights and still needs an adapter.

Know an empty building we have missed?

Open data cannot see everything. Tell us about a building in Duisburg 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 recordAntwerp, Belgium305empty buildings on recordBerlin, Germany1,875empty buildings on recordBielefeld, Germany101empty 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 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 recordStuttgart, Germany175empty buildings on recordUtrecht, Netherlands13empty buildings on recordWuppertal, Germany224empty buildings on record