Office figures: No current city-wide office vacancy figure was read: the NVM regional report for the north could not be opened and the City's property monitors sit on a council site that answers automated requests with a proof-of-work challenge. Map built 2026-10-09.
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.
0 empty buildings · colour = type, dark ring = confirmed
Check any building in Groningen: could it become homes, and could the EHC model work there?
Where empty offices, the right zoning and a working neighbourhood come together — and what could go wrong.
The City's own derelict complex stands at the southern entrance to the centre, in the station-area plans it was bought for.
Risk: Not a monument and with sitting anti-squat residents; restoration cost 'several million euros', and the City has deferred decisions for decades.
Two long-empty spots in the centre: a ground floor empty since 2021 and the cleared casino site empty since 2017.
Risk: The Merckt is privately owned and the casino site is a plot, not a building; the City frames both as shop-front and public-space questions.
166 office-only buildings with a unit of 1,000 m² or more are on the register; brokers report vacancy rising again at the city's edges and large office parks.
Risk: BAG records lawful use, not occupancy: most of these are let.
Who controls the space, and what a housing cooperative can actually do with them.
Both are the City's own. Ask the real-estate department how the options for the Glaudé complex will be put to the council in early 2027 and whether a co-operative plan can be one of them; ask the Ruimte voor Jou team for the temporary-use call on the casino plot.
A €60.6 million fund for housing co-operatives, opening for applications by the end of 2026: projects of roughly 12–100 homes for middle incomes, financed from the planning phase on. A group needs a location and the municipality's consent first, so a building from the City or a seller is the first step.
The heritage desk where initiators with plans for reusing a characteristic or listed building can register; write to the loket with the kind of building the co-operative is looking for.
The State sells surplus real estate on Biedboek (2,176 records read on 9 Oct 2026); none of the five records for Groningen city was open for sale on 9 Oct 2026 (all marked sold; the largest, a former technical school, in 2020). Watch the list for State offices; a negotiated sale is announced with a 20-working-day window to object (as for Karel de Grotelaan 4 in Eindhoven).
Decisions, auctions and closures that change what becomes available, and when.
After about 30 years of decline the municipality will investigate a new use for the buildings it bought in 1989; options go to the council early in 2027, and nothing is demolished before.
The Fonds Coöperatief Wonen (€60.6 million, run by SVn) lets co-operatives apply for financing by the end of 2026, provided they have a site and the municipality's consent.
The Tweede Kamer approved a law letting municipalities fine owners of long-empty homes; Groningen's alderman said the extent of vacancy there 'seems to be modest' and the City will first map it.
The ground floor of the 2021 landmark on the Grote Markt has had no tenant since completion; the alderman expected an announcement from the owners.
19 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.
| Source | Access | Records | Status | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenStreetMap disused/abandoned tags and brownfields OpenStreetMap contributors | Open API | 20 | 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 | 0 buildings sized | Live 2026-10-09 | CC BY-NC 4.0 (heights); footprints from OpenStreetMap and Microsoft: ODbL |
| Heights and floor areas: 3DBAG and the BAG register 3DBAG (TU Delft 3D geoinformation, 3DGI); Kadaster (BAG via PDOK) © 3DBAG by tudelft3d and 3DGI. The usable floor area of the units in each building (BAG verblijfsobjecten) where it has units, else storeys from the 70th-percentile roof height. | Open API | 175 buildings sized | Live 2026-10-09 | CC BY 4.0 (3DBAG); CC0 (BAG) |
| 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 | 48 | Live 2026-10-09 | Copernicus open data (© European Union, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service 2006–2021, EEA) |
| Church buildings no longer used for worship (Reliwiki) Reliwiki — Dutch database of religious buildings (volunteers), found through Wikidata Every religious building in the city that Wikidata links to a Reliwiki page (P8897); scripts/reuse/import-reliwiki.ts reads the page (live, or its newest Wayback Machine snapshot when reliwiki.nl is down, as on 7 Oct 2026). Category "Buiten Gebruik" with no current use = empty; with another use = already converted (a precedent). Reliwiki states no licence: shown with credit and a link to each page (decision 6 Oct 2026), off on request. | EHC research | 0 | Live 2026-10-09 | No licence stated — credited and linked per building (Wikidata links: CC0) |
| 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 |
| Listed buildings: Rijksmonumenten Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (via PDOK) National monuments as outlines (INSPIRE protected sites). Municipal monuments are not in this register. | Open API | scoring | Live 2026-10-09 | CC BY 4.0 |
| Year built: BAG building register Kadaster (Basisregistratie Adressen en Gebouwen, via PDOK) The original construction year (bouwjaar) of the BAG building a record sits in. | Open API | scoring | Live 2026-10-09 | CC0 1.0 |
| 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) |
| Buildings registered as out of use (BAG) Kadaster — Basisregistratie Adressen en Gebouwen (via PDOK) | Open API | 2 | Live 2026-10-09 | CC0 1.0 |
| Buildings with a demolition permit granted (BAG) Kadaster — Basisregistratie Adressen en Gebouwen (via PDOK) | Open API | 88 | Live 2026-10-09 | CC0 1.0 |
| Office-only buildings with a unit of 1,000 m² or more (BAG) Kadaster — Basisregistratie Adressen en Gebouwen (via PDOK) | Open API | 166 | Live 2026-10-09 | CC0 1.0 |
| Brownfield land (OpenStreetMap) OpenStreetMap contributors | Open API | 16 | Live 2026-10-09 | ODbL 1.0 |
Open data cannot see everything. Tell us about a building in Groningen that stands empty or barely used; once we have checked it, it joins the map under “Reported by visitors (checked)”.
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.