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Reuse radar

Hamburg

Hamburg's office vacancy rate is the lowest of the five radar cities, but almost three quarters of the space that stands empty is older stock at the edge of the centre and in office districts such as City Nord. The city owns about half its land and has already let a cooperative turn a city car park into 90 subsidised flats on a ground lease. What it lacks is any list of its own empty buildings: the property agency says none exists.
An empty building in Hamburg with homes, balconies and neighbours drawn onto it in ink
Empty buildings on record
555
and 64 more with an empty shop, flat or floor
Vacant office space
953,000 m²
6.5% of the stock
Homes potential
≈ 3,536
if 30% of empty offices converted

Office figures: BNP Paribas Real Estate, 30 June 2026 (market area as BNP defines it); older stock = total vacancy minus BNP’s "modern" vacancy. Homes: our economic model’s conversion engine. Map built 2026-10-09.

Empty buildings in Hamburg

One point per building, from public records, open data and cited reports. Filter by type, size and how sure the evidence is; open one to see who says so and whether it could become homes.

Hamburg’s open cadastre has no "unused" flag, so the radar cannot list empty buildings directly as it does in Berlin; empty-now points come from named cases.

Loading map…
Colour = type of building named officially likely reported
Missing a building?

Check any building in Hamburg: could it become homes, and could the EHC model work there?

5 more buildings in Hamburg reported in the news, not yet on the map

The articles do not give an address we could place, so these have no pin yet. From news reports, summed up in our own words with a link to each article — not checked on site by EHC.

  • Closed hotel at the ZOB, St. Georg, near the ZOB, St. Georg — reported empty · formerly hotelThe closed hotel by the bus station burned twice in 2025 while homeless people sheltered there; the district knew. NDR Hamburg (2026-09-18)
  • Generalleutnant-Graf-von-Baudissin-Kaserne (part), Osdorf — reported conversion planned · formerly military barracks · owner: BImABImA and Altona plan 350–400 homes and a nursery on part of the barracks, construction from spring 2029. Entwicklungsstadt (2026-04-15)
  • Kutscherhaus, Amsinckpark — reported empty · owner: Bezirksamt EimsbüttelThe historic house has stood empty since 2017 Hamburger Morgenpost (MOPO) (2025-09-17)
  • Lost Place am Hammer Park — reported conversion plannedA derelict building at Hammer Park is meant to become a restaurant, and progress is reviewed. Hamburger Abendblatt (2025-12-30)
  • Strabag Real Estate office conversion (address withheld) — reported conversion planned · formerly office · owner: Strabag Real EstateA second office-to-housing scheme with about 200 small flats is planned; the address is not yet public. NDR Hamburg (2025-02-14)

Where conversion makes sense, and who to talk to

The districts where empty space, the right zoning and a working neighbourhood come together, and the owners and programmes that open a door. 953,000 m² of offices stand empty (6.5% of the stock), 694,000 m² of it older stock — the realistic pool for conversion.

A hand outlining a neighbourhood on a city map, with small houses drawn inside

City Nord

A 1960s–70s office city whose own owners say it has too much office space and back conversion; a U5 station is planned at Überseering.

  • Owners’ association reports vacancy above 11%, the highest since the 1990s
  • It names the Überseering 17 and 26 projects as stagnating and wants more housing there
  • Office asking rents start at €8.50/m² (Savills, 2025)

Risk: The housing that is coming is mostly new build on car parks, and the long-empty DEA building is being looked at for the state laboratory.

3 sources

Hammerbrook and City Süd

The district with the longest record of adding homes to an office quarter, and an active plan to add more.

  • About 2,900 new flats built in Hammerbrook in a decade
  • B-Plan Hammerbrook 15 (0.86 ha, Spaldingstraße / Albertstraße) started 27 May 2025
  • City Süd office asking rents from €9.50/m² (Savills, 2025)

Risk: Land prices are rising, and noise from rail lines and arterial roads has not been checked.

2 sources

Innenstadt and Altstadt

The Senate wants city-centre commercial space turned into housing where possible, and the first cooperative conversion of a city building is here.

  • Gröninger Hof: a city car park becoming 90 subsidised cooperative flats on a 75-year Erbbaurecht
  • The city pays about €2 million a year for rented space it does not use, including about 9,220 m² at Johannes-Brahms-Platz
  • City zone vacancy 149,000 m², of which 66,000 m² modern (BNP, mid-2026)

Risk: Most empty space in the City zone is modern prime stock that owners will try to re-let rather than sell.

4 sources

Harburg

The cheapest office rents in Hamburg and land the city has just bought for housing.

  • Office asking rents from €8.00/m² (Savills, 2025)
  • The city bought 69,000 m² on Magistrale 9 in Harburg "for future housing" in 2025
  • Elfenwiese concept tender for building groups, with applications due by 7 September 2026

Risk: Conversion evidence is thin: no named empty office buildings were found.

3 sources

Signals to watch

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

  1. 2026-08-07City keeps buying land

    Hamburg bought 87.8 ha in 2025, including 69,000 m² on Magistrale 9 in Harburg for future housing, and granted 8.5 ha on Erbbaurecht.

    1 source
  2. 2026-07-22Galeria Hamburg-Eimsbüttel under review

    The Eimsbüttel store is among 33 Galeria is reviewing, with further closures planned.

    1 source
  3. 2026-06-30Krankenhaus Groß-Sand closes

    The Wilhelmsburg hospital, owned by a Catholic parish of the Archdiocese of Hamburg, ended operations, citing the federal hospital reform.

    2 sources
3 earlier signals
  1. 2026-04-28
    City pays €2 million a year for unused rented space

    Including about 9,220 m² at Johannes-Brahms-Platz rented for the Justizbehörde and not used.

    1 source
  2. 2026-02-27
    Holsten-Areal sold to a consortium including SAGA

    SAGA and Quantum signed a purchase contract for about 700 subsidised homes in a plan of about 2,000; no cooperative share has been reported.

    1 source
  3. 2026-01-16
    Becken plans a residential tower in City Nord

    Up to 180 rental flats, 35% subsidised, on the car park at Überseering 40 by Q4 2027; the neighbouring DEA building has stood empty for years.

    1 source

Sources, and what we cannot see

29 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.

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
Office, administrative and school buildings on city-owned land
Landesbetrieb Geoinformation und Vermessung (LGV) / LIG Hamburg
City ownership of the parcel, intersected with ALKIS building function. Says nothing about occupancy.
Open API206Live
2026-10-09
Datenlizenz Deutschland – Namensnennung 2.0
Office buildings of 4+ storeys that are 16 m deep or less
Landesbetrieb Geoinformation und Vermessung (LGV) Hamburg
Geometry only — says nothing about whether a building is occupied.
Open API733Live
2026-10-09
Datenlizenz Deutschland – Namensnennung 2.0
Normalised land values by use (flats vs offices) per block
Gutachterausschuss für Grundstückswerte in Hamburg
Open APIscoringLive
2026-10-09
Datenlizenz Deutschland – Namensnennung 2.0
Federal land (BImA and Deutsche Bahn parcels)
LGV Hamburg
Open API448Live
2026-10-09
Datenlizenz Deutschland – Namensnennung 2.0
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 API462Live
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 download8 buildings sizedLive
2026-10-09
CC BY-NC 4.0 (heights); footprints from OpenStreetMap and Microsoft: ODbL
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 permission429Live
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 download130Live
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 API131Live
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 API1Live
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 research1Live
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 research4Live
2026-10-09
Cited publisher per point
Named buildings and sites from EHC research (each with its own source)
European Housing Coop research
Includes the library’s public lighthouse conversions (src/scripts/data/reuse/lighthouses.json), shown under "Already converting" with a link to their library page.
EHC research26Live
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)
Homes and mixed buildings the Hamburg Senate names empty in written answers (Bürgerschaft, since 2020)
Bürgerschaft der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg — ParlDok (answers of the Senate)
Open API36Live
2026-10-09
Official documents (§ 5 UrhG, no copyright); credit "Bürgerschaft der FHH, Drucksache <number>". Located with Hamburg's address service (api.hamburg.de, dl-de/by-2-0).
Public buildings the Hamburg Senate names empty in written answers (Bürgerschaft, since 2020)
Bürgerschaft der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg — ParlDok (answers of the Senate)
Open API31Live
2026-10-09
Official documents (§ 5 UrhG, no copyright); credit "Bürgerschaft der FHH, Drucksache <number>". Located with Hamburg's address service (api.hamburg.de, dl-de/by-2-0).
Other buildings (offices, shops, halls) the Hamburg Senate names empty in written answers (Bürgerschaft, since 2020)
Bürgerschaft der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg — ParlDok (answers of the Senate)
Open API13Live
2026-10-09
Official documents (§ 5 UrhG, no copyright); credit "Bürgerschaft der FHH, Drucksache <number>". Located with Hamburg's address service (api.hamburg.de, dl-de/by-2-0).
Homes and mixed buildings named empty in Hamburg's district assemblies (Bezirksversammlungen, since 2020)
Bezirksversammlungen der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg (via the Hamburg Transparenzportal)
Open API6Live
2026-10-09
Datenlizenz Deutschland – Namensnennung 2.0 (each paper: "Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg, Bezirksversammlung <district>"). Located with Hamburg's address service (dl-de/by-2-0).
Public buildings named empty in Hamburg's district assemblies (Bezirksversammlungen, since 2020)
Bezirksversammlungen der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg (via the Hamburg Transparenzportal)
Open API1Live
2026-10-09
Datenlizenz Deutschland – Namensnennung 2.0 (each paper: "Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg, Bezirksversammlung <district>"). Located with Hamburg's address service (dl-de/by-2-0).
Other buildings (offices, shops, halls) named empty in Hamburg's district assemblies (Bezirksversammlungen, since 2020)
Bezirksversammlungen der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg (via the Hamburg Transparenzportal)
Open API4Live
2026-10-09
Datenlizenz Deutschland – Namensnennung 2.0 (each paper: "Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg, Bezirksversammlung <district>"). Located with Hamburg's address service (dl-de/by-2-0).
Buildings named in the news (each with its article)
Local and national press, read by EHC
Buildings the news reports empty, for sale or to let, to be demolished or being converted (src/scripts/data/reuse/news-building-leads.json; rules in src/lib/reuse/news-layer.ts). A report that names a building already on the map is shown on its card instead of a second point; one an open source contradicted, or that says the building is in use, is left out. Not checked on site.
EHC research39Live
2026-10-14
Facts with a link to the article; the one-line summary is ours — no article text is republished
Era of the buildings around it: Zensus 2022 (100 m grid)
Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis), Zensus 2022
Buildings with living space by decade of construction in the record’s 100 m grid cell — not the building itself, which may well be an office. An era is given only when at least 60% of the cell’s buildings fall within 30 years; counts are perturbed for confidentiality (Cell-Key Method).
Open downloadscoringLive
2026-10-14
Datenlizenz Deutschland – Namensnennung 2.0
Era of the buildings around it: Zensus 2022 (3 × 3 grid cells)
Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis), Zensus 2022
As the 100 m figure, over the nine cells around the record, where its own cell counts fewer than five buildings with homes.
Open downloadscoringLive
2026-10-14
Datenlizenz Deutschland – Namensnennung 2.0
Probable era: estimated from a street photo (Panoramax, Mapillary, Google Street View)
Panoramax and Mapillary contributors; Google Street View (research use agreed with Google, 14 Oct 2026); estimate by EHC with a vision model
Where no register dates a building: its era read from a Panoramax or Mapillary photo looking at it — Google Street View only where no open photo answers (scripts/reuse/estimate-photo-eras.ts), only when the building is clearly visible and the model is confident, and only as “before 1945” or “1945 or later” — the split it got right for 89% of buildings with a register year in Amsterdam and Paris, and 89% from Street View pictures alone (photo-eras/calibration.json). An estimate: a sentence in the conversion check, never points.
Open APIscoringLive
2026-10-14
Open photos CC BY-SA 4.0 or Licence Ouverte 2.0 (per picture); Street View read for research only, never stored or shown; only the estimated era is published, never a photo

What this radar cannot see yet

  • Hamburg’s open cadastre has no "unused" flag, so the radar cannot list empty buildings directly as it does in Berlin; empty-now points come from named cases.
  • Hamburg’s courts do not publish forced auctions on zvg-portal.de, so auctions are missing here.
  • The city property agency keeps no list of empty or unused buildings (FOI answer, April 2025), so public vacancy has to be assembled case by case.
  • Leerstandsmelder has more Hamburg reports than any other city; they are public reports, not checked by EHC, and carry no end date — the map shows those made since 2016, each linked to its entry on leerstandsmelder.de.

Know an empty building we have missed?

Open data cannot see everything. Tell us about a building in Hamburg 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 149 cities in the atlas

The figure on each card: empty buildings on record.

Aachen, Germany120empty buildings on recordAarhus, Denmark18empty buildings on recordAugsburg, Germany249empty buildings on recordBerlin, Germany1,902empty buildings on recordBielefeld, Germany103empty buildings on recordBochum, Germany160empty buildings on recordBonn, Germany149empty buildings on recordBraunschweig, Germany83empty buildings on recordBremen, Germany216empty buildings on recordChemnitz, Germany244empty buildings on recordCologne, Germany398empty buildings on recordCopenhagen, Denmark47empty buildings on recordDortmund, Germany314empty buildings on recordDresden, Germany347empty buildings on recordDuisburg, Germany147empty buildings on recordDüsseldorf, Germany62empty buildings on recordEssen, Germany225empty buildings on recordFrankfurt am Main, Germany228empty buildings on recordGelsenkirchen, Germany97empty buildings on recordGroningen, Netherlands15empty buildings on recordHannover, Germany203empty buildings on recordKarlsruhe, Germany90empty buildings on recordKiel, Germany66empty buildings on recordLeipzig, Germany345empty buildings on recordMannheim, Germany87empty buildings on recordMönchengladbach, Germany192empty buildings on recordMunich, Germany333empty buildings on recordMünster, Germany173empty buildings on recordNuremberg, Germany110empty buildings on recordStuttgart, Germany186empty buildings on recordSzczecin, Poland355empty buildings on recordWiesbaden, Germany39empty buildings on recordWuppertal, Germany236empty buildings on record