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Hannover

Hannover keeps no register of empty buildings: the city says flat vacancy is a statistical estimate from enercity meter data by district. The 2022 census counted 10,334 empty flats (3.4%), three in five of them available for occupation. In the centre two former department stores stand empty (Karstadt since October 2020, Kaufhof for about three years), the Ihme-Zentrum is in insolvency with €290 million of land charges, and the city itself offers a block of built plots in the Südstadt to housing co-operatives until 27 November 2026.
Vacant office space295,000 m²6.2% of the stock stands empty
Empty buildings on record197and 74 more with an empty shop, flat or floor; of all 271, 73 confirmed, 1 likely
On the map1,625buildings and sites from 11 open sources
Homes potential—not in the economic model’s office data yet

Office figures: Landeshauptstadt and Region Hannover, Immobilienmarktbericht Hannover 2026 (compact edition, bulwiengesa data of Q3/2026): city of Hannover office stock 4.76 million m², vacancy 295,000 m² (6.2%); 347,000 m² (6.6%) with Garbsen, Laatzen and Langenhagen. Map built 2026-10-09.

Hannover 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.

No open list of empty buildings: the city said in 2019 that there is no register of empty flats, only an annual estimate from enercity meter data by district, and that it does not know the owners (council answer DS 15-3102/2019 F1).

Loading map…

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

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

Homes standing empty

Of 131 Leerstandsmelder reports on the map, 130 sit in a building we can identify — 86 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
58Gerberstraße 6
Apartment building · 3 storeys · Extent not stated
1,615 m²Sept 2025
58Haltenhoffstraße 1
Apartment building · 5 storeys · Extent not stated
1,362 m²Oct 2025
58Dangersstraße 2
Apartment building · 4 storeys · Extent not stated · 2 records
2,325 m²Feb 2026
58Fliederstraße 4
Apartment building · 4 storeys · Extent not stated
1,275 m²Mar 2026
58Rote Reihe 15
Apartment building · Extent not stated
1,285 m²Sept 2025
58Engelbosteler Damm 120
Apartment building · Extent not stated
1,270 m²Jan 2026
57Kniestraße 29
Apartment building · 4 storeys · Extent not stated
864 m²Aug 2026
56Königsworther Straße 4
Apartment building · 4 storeys · Extent not stated
948 m²Sept 2025
54Podbielskistraße 163
Apartment building · 4 storeys · Extent not stated
880 m²Sept 2025
53Goebenstraße 11
Apartment building · 4 storeys · Extent not stated
1,335 m²Nov 2025
53Berliner Allee 56
Apartment building · 5 storeys · Extent not stated
1,818 m²Feb 2026
51Geibelstraße 14
Apartment building · 4 storeys · Extent not stated
1,818 m²Feb 2022
49Weißenburgstraße 5
Residential building · 4 storeys · Extent not stated
748 m²Nov 2025
48Weckenstraße 18
Apartment building · 4 storeys · Extent not stated
1,500 m²Oct 2025
48Struckmeyerstraße 2
Apartment building · 4 storeys · Extent not stated
1,380 m²Nov 2025

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 (Georgstraße and the old town edge)

Two former department stores within a few hundred metres: Karstadt (empty since October 2020) and Kaufhof at Schmiedestraße (about three years unused, with a school and rooftop flats planned).

  • Karstadt closed Oct 2020; developer Accom interested (Dec 2025)
  • Kaufhof facade competition won by Herzog & de Meuron (Apr 2026)
  • 'aufhof' pop-up in the Kaufhof ground floor: June 2023 to 15 July 2024

Risk: Both are private and the city has not bought either; Karstadt's future is unclear (a developer's interest in December 2025, no confirmed sale).

3 sources

Linden-Mitte (Ihme-Zentrum)

A very large complex in insolvency, with the city now funding a challenge to the €290 million land charges that block its future.

  • Insolvency of Projekt IZ Hannover GmbH
  • Land charges of €290 million
  • Creditors' committee decision of 12 June 2026; city loan of up to €1 million planned

Risk: Nothing can be bought or refurbished until the charges and ownership are cleared; the Mayor's stance is that speculators are not welcome.

1 source

Südstadt (Sallstraße and Am Bokemahle)

A city offer aimed at co-operatives: 3,923 m² of built plots with former archive and administration buildings, 30 to 50 per cent subsidised rented flats required.

  • Applications until 27 Nov 2026; viewings 13 and 22 Oct 2026
  • Open to developers, housing co-operatives and housing companies
  • Four storeys plus roof planned

Risk: The default is demolition; only Sallstraße 16 / Am Bokemahle 18 may be kept, and the deadline is 27 November 2026.

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 Hannover — Fachbereich Wirtschaft (property sales and heritable rights)

The city sells and grants heritable building rights. Open now: Sallstraße 16 / Am Bokemahle 14–18 (developers, co-operatives, housing companies; until 27 Nov 2026) and the Deutscher Pavillon (expression of interest until 31 Dec 2026, from €7.7 million, groups welcome). A tender for the 'Grüner Hügel' plot at Küchengarten/Limmerstraße is announced but not yet published.

3 sources
Subsidy

Federal programme 'Gewerbe zu Wohnen'

From July 2026 the federal government pays up to €30,000 a flat for turning heated non-residential buildings into homes (€300 million for 2026) — relevant to the offices (6.2% vacancy) and department stores of the centre.

1 source

Signals to watch

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

  1. 2026-10-09
    Two city offers open to co-operatives and groups

    Sallstraße / Am Bokemahle (until 27 Nov 2026) and the Deutscher Pavillon (until 31 Dec 2026) are open on the city's property page.

    1 source
  2. 2026-09-04
    Office vacancy 6.2% in the city

    The 2026 market report puts city office vacancy at 295,000 m² (6.2%), 347,000 m² (6.6%) with three neighbouring towns.

    1 source
  3. 2026-06-24
    City to fund a challenge to the Ihme-Zentrum land charges

    A loan of up to €1 million to the insolvency administrator, after the creditors' committee decision of 12 June 2026.

    1 source
  4. 2026-04-09
    Facade plan for the empty Kaufhof

    The city announced the winning facade design by Herzog & de Meuron; the owner also plans a school, a sports hall and rooftop flats.

    1 source
  5. 2025-12-11
    Developer eyes the empty Karstadt

    Accom confirmed interest in the former Karstadt main house on Georgstraße, empty since October 2020.

    1 source
  6. 2025-07-11
    Vacancy now counts as misuse of housing

    The council's ordinance, passed on 26 June 2025, took effect on 11 July 2025; flats empty for six months or more need approval.

    1 source
  7. 2024-07-15
    'aufhof' closes

    The city's pop-up in the empty Kaufhof ground floor ended after 13 months with about 750 events and more than 250,000 visitors.

    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 API2Live
2026-10-09
Official public notice (§ 39 ZVG)
OpenStreetMap disused/abandoned tags and brownfields
OpenStreetMap contributors
Open API129Live
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 download16 buildings sizedLive
2026-10-09
CC BY-NC 4.0 (heights); footprints from OpenStreetMap and Microsoft: ODbL
Heights: 3D building models LoD2 (Lower Saxony)
Landesamt für Geoinformation und Landesvermessung Niedersachsen (LGLN)
© LGLN. The models record no storeys, so the eaves height (lowest roof edge − ground, tallest part) is turned into storeys. 1 km CityGML tiles (2024), streamed once per tile holding a building, never stored. robots.txt: none on lod2.opengeodata.lgln.niedersachsen.de (9 Oct 2026).
Open download614 buildings sizedLive
2026-10-09
CC BY 4.0 (per building); dl-de/by-2-0 on the portal
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 permission131Live
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 download2Live
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 API52Live
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 research5Live
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)
Public-purpose buildings in the cadastre (ALKIS)
Landesamt für Geoinformation und Landesvermessung Niedersachsen (LGLN) — OpenGeoData.NI, ALKIS per Landkreis (GeoPackage, Region Hannover), read by scripts/reuse/import-hannover-alkis.ts
Open download198Live
2026-10-09
CC BY 4.0 (LGLN)
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 information14Live
2026-10-09
No licence stated — official lists released under the IFG and published by FragDenStaat; used with credit to the BImA and FragDenStaat
Office buildings mapped in OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap contributors (via overpass.openstreetmap.fr)
Open API982Live
2026-10-09
ODbL 1.0
Brownfield land mapped in OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap contributors (via overpass.openstreetmap.fr)
Open API54Live
2026-10-09
ODbL 1.0
Free offices, shops and halls in the City of Hannover on the Region Hannover commercial property portal
Region Hannover — Wirtschaftsförderung (Gewerbeimmobilienportal Region Hannover)
Open download56Live
2026-10-09
No licence stated — the Region's public listing, used with credit to Region Hannover, Wirtschaftsförderung; only address, use, area and availability are kept

What this radar cannot see yet

  • No open list of empty buildings: the city said in 2019 that there is no register of empty flats, only an annual estimate from enercity meter data by district, and that it does not know the owners (council answer DS 15-3102/2019 F1).
  • Lower Saxony's open ALKIS records neither a condition (so no 'unused' flag) nor storeys nor office codes: the radar's cadastre layer is public-purpose buildings of at least 1,000 m² (198), and offices come from OpenStreetMap.
  • Flat vacancy by building is unavailable; the 2022 census gives only totals (10,334 empty flats, 3.4%; 32.6% empty for a year or more).
  • Council papers: Hannover's information system (e-government.hannover-stadt.de/lhhsimwebre.nsf) has no OParl interface and no open search; the city's open-data portal (opendata-hannover.de) did not answer on 9 Oct 2026.
  • The ex-Karstadt's present status, the ownership of the old Kaufhof and the Ihme-Zentrum's insolvency plan are known only from press and the city's release; no register entry was read.
  • Floor area: the city's own LoD2 model (opengeodata.hannover-stadt.de, 135,800 buildings from a 2010 laser survey, CityGML) or LGLN's LoD2 can supply heights.

Know an empty building we have missed?

Open data cannot see everything. Tell us about a building in Hannover 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 recordBochum, Germany155empty 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 recordGroningen, Netherlands10empty buildings on recordHamburg, Germany524empty 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