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Reuse radar

Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf has the highest office vacancy of Germany's seven largest markets — 11.8%, about 1.12 million m² available at short notice in mid-2026 — yet its cadastre flags only six buildings as unused. The city's own register of land potentials lists 94 areas for homes or mixed use, many of them city-owned in part, and the 26-hectare Bergische Kaserne has stood empty since 2018.
An empty building in Düsseldorf with homes, balconies and neighbours drawn onto it in ink
Vacant office space1.12 million m²11.8% of the stock stands empty
Empty buildings on record46and 12 more with an empty shop, flat or floor; of all 58, 11 confirmed, 1 likely
Flagged unused4buildings in the official cadastre; 2 have 3,000 m² or more
Homes potential—not in the economic model’s office data yet

Office figures: JLL, Düsseldorf office market H1 2026 — vacancy rose to 11.8% at mid-year, about 1.12 million m² available at short notice; take-up 112,200 m² in the first half. Map built 2026-10-09.

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 Düsseldorf: 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
68Tersteegenstraße 28, 40474 Düsseldorf
Fund building with empty space · office 88 %, parking, industrial, other
8,913 m²17.5 m309 mA fit only
68Wilhelm-Marx-Haus
Fund building with empty space · office and practices 73 %, retail 26 %, logistics 1 % · 6 storeys
10,428 m²20.4 m93 mA fit only
68Luisen-Gymnasium (Grundstück 3.566 m2 mit denkmalgeschütztem Schulgebäude)
Public building named vacant · Schulgebäude; Leerzug für Schuljahr 2026/2027 geplant
11,400 m²20.2 m89 mA fit only
58Building flagged unused, Münsterstraße 446 (Mörsenbroich)
Flagged unused in the cadastre · 1 other source nearby
3,956 m²36.7 m155 mB fit only
43Bergische Kaserne, Hubbelrath
Public building named vacant
——2,743 m—

Homes standing empty

Of 18 Leerstandsmelder reports on the map, 18 sit in a building we can identify — 9 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
72Duisburger Straße 63
Apartment building · 5 storeys · Whole building
700 m²Nov 2022
60Kirchfeldstr. 111
Apartment building · 5 storeys · Whole building
624 m²Apr 2020

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

Hubbelrath — Bergische Kaserne

About 26 ha of former barracks, unused since 2018, which the city and the federal owner agreed in 2024 to convert to civilian use.

  • Unused since the Bundeswehr's training band left in 2018
  • Conversion partnership signed by the city and BImA on 7 Oct 2024

Risk: A renewed military use was under discussion in 2026; listed buildings and a long federal process.

1 source

Mörsenbroich — Vogelsanger Weg and Münsterstraße

Two mixed-use potential areas of the city (13.5 ha together, binding plans) next to the largest building the cadastre flags unused in Düsseldorf.

  • 'Vogelsanger Weg / Münsterstraße' 7.95 ha and 'Beiderseits Vogelsanger Weg' 5.57 ha (city register, Jan 2026)
  • Münsterstraße 446 flagged unused, footprint about 1,980 m² (cadastre, July 2026)

Risk: Mostly private and commercial land; the unused building's owner is unknown.

2 sources

Gerresheim — Glasmacherviertel

The largest housing potential in the city register: 28.45 ha of the former glassworks, planned at about 100 homes per hectare, partly city-owned.

  • 28.45 ha, planning procedure under way, ownership 'städtisch, andere' (city register, Jan 2026)

Risk: A private developer's long-running project; the planning procedure is still under way.

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

Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf — Amt für Gebäudemanagement

The city has handed an empty listed office building over on a ground lease before: the old Kämmerei opposite the town hall stood empty from 2014, a bidding round failed in 2017, the building committee then backed a ground-lease model, and a developer took the building over in 2019 (about 13,200 m², reopened 2025). Ask for the next empty city building on a ground lease, for homes.

2 sources

Signals to watch

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

  1. 2026-07-28
    Cadastre flags only six buildings unused or ruined

    The July 2026 edition of the NRW cadastre records 3 of Düsseldorf's 193,653 buildings as unused and 3 as ruined — the flag is barely used here, unlike in Cologne (476).

    1 source
  2. 2026-07
    Office vacancy rises to 11.8%

    About 1.12 million m² of offices available at short notice; first-half take-up 112,200 m², 8% below the year before.

    1 source
  3. 2026-01-28
    New edition of the city's land-potential register

    64 housing areas and 30 mixed-use areas, each with its planning stage and an ownership category, published as open data.

    1 source
  4. 2024-10-07
    Conversion partnership for the Bergische Kaserne

    The city and the Federal Real Estate Agency signed a contract to prepare the civilian reuse of the barracks, empty since 2018.

    1 source

Sources and freshness

23 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 API112Live
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 download37 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 API339 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 permission18Live
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 download10Live
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 API51Live
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 research3Live
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 download3Live
2026-10-09
dl-de/zero-2-0
Administration buildings in the cadastre (ALKIS)
Geobasis NRW — Liegenschaftskataster (ALKIS), OGC API Features 'lika'
Open API301Live
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 API32Live
2026-10-09
dl-de/zero-2-0
Housing land potentials (City of Düsseldorf Potenzialflächenkataster)
Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf — Stadtplanungsamt, Potenzialflächenkataster (opendata.duesseldorf.de)
Open download64Live
2026-10-09
dl-de/zero-2-0
Mixed-use land potentials (City of Düsseldorf Potenzialflächenkataster)
Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf — Stadtplanungsamt, Potenzialflächenkataster (opendata.duesseldorf.de)
Open download30Live
2026-10-09
dl-de/zero-2-0
Federal properties with empty offices or flats (BImA list, 1 Jan 2023)
Bundesanstalt für Immobilienaufgaben (BImA) — lists released under the Freedom of Information Act via FragDenStaat (request #269761); read by scripts/reuse/import-bima-vacancy-2023.ts
Freedom of information8Live
2026-10-09
No licence stated — official lists released under the IFG and published by FragDenStaat; used with credit to the BImA and FragDenStaat
City of Düsseldorf property offers: former Luisen-Gymnasium, Bastionstraße 24
Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf, Liegenschaftsamt
Open download1Live
2026-10-09
not stated — credited to the publisher (the page gives its details "without guarantee")

What this radar cannot see yet

  • Düsseldorf's cadastre office barely uses the 'unused' flag (6 buildings), so the strongest open signal of the German radars says almost nothing here.
  • No open list of empty city or state buildings; the council information system (ris-duesseldorf.itk-rheinland.de, SessionNet) is searchable only through a form, which EHC does not submit.
  • Leerstandsmelder holds 26 Düsseldorf reports (18 since 2016); they are shown only where Jonathan has recorded a display decision.
  • Office buildings: the open cadastre folds offices into administration and commerce; OpenStreetMap's office outlines were not tested for this city.

Know an empty building we have missed?

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