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Reuse radar

Karlsruhe

Karlsruhe's own market report puts office vacancy at 6.4% (about 171,500 m²) at the end of 2025, up from just under 6% in 2024 and about 3% before 2019. The radar's main stories are public buildings the city is selling to balance its budget: Rathaus West by concept tender, two villas by highest bid, and the former party-groups house on Hebelstraße to the Studierendenwerk for student flats at a 30% land discount. The census counted 5,094 empty homes (3.2%) in May 2022, the city keeps no vacancy register and has no misuse-of-housing ordinance, and the last big conversion site, the C-Areal in the Nordstadt, has stalled.
An empty building in Karlsruhe with homes, balconies and neighbours drawn onto it in ink
Empty buildings on record
90
and 11 more with an empty shop, flat or floor
Vacant office space
171,500 m²
6.4% of the stock
Homes potential
—
not in the economic model’s office data yet

Office figures: Stadt Karlsruhe, Wirtschaftsförderung, Büromarkt Karlsruhe 2025 (data bulwiengesa, Stand April 2026): vacancy rose to 6.4% in 2025, a vacant volume of just under 171,500 m², on a stock of 2,685,275 m²; average rent €11/m², prime rent €18–19/m². The city says heavy new building since 2019 plus weak demand drove the rise; in May 2025 it reported just under 6% for 2024 and about 3% on average up to 2019, and expects vacancy risks mainly in older buildings with ESG defects. The report gives no figure for older stock. Map built 2026-10-15.

Empty buildings in Karlsruhe

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.

No list of empty buildings: the City confirmed in July 2025 that it keeps no vacancy register and writes to owners case by case; the 2022 census counted 5,094 empty homes (3.2%) and 590 wholly empty buildings, but not where. Only buildings named in council papers or the press are on the map.

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

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

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. 171,500 m² of offices stand empty (6.4% of the stock).

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

Weststadt by Mühlburger Tor (Kaiserallee, Jahnstraße, Bismarckstraße)

Three surplus city buildings within about 300 m are on the market or about to be: Rathaus West (concept tender), the former Konservatorium at Jahnstraße 20 (highest bid) and Haus Solms (highest bid); the Lukaskirche is for sale a kilometre to the west.

  • Rathaus West: council vote 42–3 for a concept tender, 19 May 2026; own refurbishment would cost about €34 million
  • Jahnstraße 20 empty and cleared; Land declined to buy (April 2026)
  • Haus Solms used for weddings until at least end of 2026

Risk: Highest-bid sales favour cash buyers, and two of the three are listed or carry heritage interiors; the Rathaus West criteria are not yet fixed.

3 sources

Innenstadt (Kaiserstraße and Marktplatz)

Retail vacancies keep rising after years of tunnel and street works; the city owns empty floor space in the centre and has just sold one empty office house for student flats.

  • About 6,000 m² of city-owned floor space empty in the centre (February 2024)
  • Unikat, Hallhuber and Hof-Apotheke units still unlet (September 2026)
  • Hebelstraße 13 sold to the Studierendenwerk, July 2026

Risk: Most centre buildings are privately owned and owners often refuse interim uses; federal funding for the city's rental model ended in 2025.

3 sources

Nordstadt and Knielingen (former US areas)

The last large conversion area, the C-Areal, is stalled with about 1,000 homes planned; next door the city's own plots in Zukunft Nord go to community-oriented building groups on discounted heritable leases; in Knielingen 2.0 a listed garrison church is for sale.

  • C-Areal demolished 2022; parent group filed for insolvency November 2024
  • Zukunft Nord: ground rent 3% of a value cut by 30% for community-oriented groups (2025)
  • Garnisonskirche: two tender rounds without a viable investor

Risk: The C-Areal is privately owned and the city judged a buy-out unaffordable; the church needs a costly heritage refurbishment.

3 sources

Südstadt and Bahnhofplatz

The Aktionsbündnis Wohnen has made two empty sites here its targets: the former Hotel Residenz opposite the main station and two decaying houses on Werderstraße.

  • Hotel Residenz empty about two years; permit approved August 2026
  • Werderstraße 76 and 78: city pest control by substitute execution, 2023
  • About 16 homes possible on Werderstraße, by the alliance's estimate

Risk: Both are privately owned; the hotel's owner has a new permit for a hospitality use and the Werderstraße owners cannot be found.

2 sources

Signals to watch

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

  1. 2026-10-14Hotel Residenz: owner plans a hotel, alliance plans a march

    The owner says a permit for refurbishment and hospitality use was approved in August 2026 and housing is only being examined; the Aktionsbündnis Wohnen called a march from Werderplatz to the building for 17 October.

    2 sources
  2. 2026-09-28City: classic retail will not return to Kaiserstraße

    Former Unikat and Hallhuber units remain unlet and the Hof-Apotheke has been empty since March 2024; the city does not expect retail to return at its former scale.

    1 source
  3. 2026-07-28Empty city house sold for student flats

    The council unanimously sold Hebelstraße 13 to the Studierendenwerk for €1,644,600 after a 30% discount on the land value, tied to rent and income limits for 15 years.

    2 sources
5 earlier signals
  1. 2026-07-26
    Lukaskirche for sale again

    After talks with the association 'Wir für Lukas' failed, the Protestant city church offers the Weststadt church ensemble for €95,000.

    1 source
  2. 2026-05-19
    Rathaus West to be sold by concept tender

    The council voted 42 to 3 to prepare a concept tender for the listed building at Kaiserallee 4, which will be empty once the Technisches Rathaus reopens; the same day it debated demolishing the Knielingen garrison church while Volkswohnung pursued a sale.

    2 sources
  3. 2026-04-28
    First tranche of surplus city buildings

    The council authorised the sale of Hebelstraße 13, Jahnstraße 20 and Haus Solms (Bismarckstraße 24) under the budget-consolidation order no. 5.

    2 sources
  4. 2026-04-01
    City report: office vacancy 6.4%

    Büromarkt Karlsruhe 2025 counts just under 171,500 m² of empty offices on a stock of 2.69 million m².

    1 source
  5. 2026-03-24
    Former Bundeswehr site: BImA to build capped-rent flats

    For Kriegsstraße 200 (about 7,900 m², a refugee shelter 2015–2018, buildings since demolished) the BImA will build an office and keep all new flats as rentals capped at €12/m² for at least 15 years, after Volkswohnung withdrew.

    1 source

Sources, and what we cannot see

24 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
2026-10-15
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
2026-10-15
Official public notice (§ 39 ZVG)
OpenStreetMap disused/abandoned tags and brownfields
OpenStreetMap contributors
Open API114Live
2026-10-15
ODbL 1.0 (© OpenStreetMap contributors)
Rail, S-Bahn and U-Bahn stations (OpenStreetMap)
OpenStreetMap contributors
Open APIscoringLive
2026-10-15
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 download34 buildings sizedLive
2026-10-15
CC BY-NC 4.0 (heights); footprints from OpenStreetMap and Microsoft: ODbL
Heights: 3D building models LoD2 (Baden-Württemberg)
Landesamt für Geoinformation und Landentwicklung Baden-Württemberg (LGL)
LGL-BW (2026) Datenlizenz Deutschland – Namensnennung – Version 2.0, www.lgl-bw.de. The models record no storeys, so the eaves height (lowest roof edge − ground, tallest part) is turned into storeys. 2 km CityGML tiles, read once per tile holding an empty building.
Open download1,138 buildings sizedLive
2026-10-15
Datenlizenz Deutschland – Namensnennung 2.0
Road noise (EU Environmental Noise Directive, Lden)
European Environment Agency
Open APIscoringLive
2026-10-15
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 permission6Live
2026-10-15
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 download0Live
2026-10-15
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
2026-10-15
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 API46Live
2026-10-15
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
2026-10-15
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
2026-10-15
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
2026-10-15
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 research10Live
2026-10-15
Facts cited to their publishers
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 research0Live
2026-10-15
Facts with a link to the article; the one-line summary is ours — no article text is republished
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
2026-10-15
ODbL 1.0 (© OpenStreetMap contributors)
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
2026-10-15
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
2026-10-15
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
2026-10-15
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
Office buildings in the Baden-Württemberg cadastre (ALKIS, INSPIRE buildings)
Landesamt für Geoinformation und Landentwicklung Baden-Württemberg (LGL) — INSPIRE building WFS WFS_INSP_BW_Gebaeude_ALKIS, current use 'office'
Open API900Live
2026-10-15
dl-de/by-2-0 (Datenlizenz Deutschland – Namensnennung 2.0; © LGL, www.lgl-bw.de)
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 information10Live
2026-10-15
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 API636Live
2026-10-15
ODbL 1.0
Brownfield land mapped in OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap contributors (via overpass.openstreetmap.fr)
Open API31Live
2026-10-15
ODbL 1.0

What this radar cannot see yet

  • No list of empty buildings: the City confirmed in July 2025 that it keeps no vacancy register and writes to owners case by case; the 2022 census counted 5,094 empty homes (3.2%) and 590 wholly empty buildings, but not where. Only buildings named in council papers or the press are on the map.
  • Baden-Württemberg's open cadastre records building use but no storeys and no 'unused' condition, so the cadastre layer is every building filed as an office (900 in the city), not filtered by plan depth or size and not a sign of vacancy. Heights for floor areas come from the LGL LoD2 tiles (registry karlsruhe-lgl-lod2-heights).
  • The open data portal (transparenz.karlsruhe.de) holds no dataset of vacant buildings, city property for sale, conversion areas or building gaps; Volkswohnung's 13 completely empty properties (July 2025) are not listed, and the 'Karlsruher Wohnpotentialflächenatlas' is not published.
  • Department stores: whether the Galeria store on Kaiserstraße survives the chain's insolvency filing of 2 October 2026 could not be checked (galeria.de refused the request); the centre's empty shop units are named in the press but not mapped.
  • Council papers come from the City's OParl service (web1.karlsruhe.de/ris/oparl), read by hand for this radar, not mined systematically; zvg-portal listed no commercial forced auction at Amtsgericht Karlsruhe on 15 Oct 2026.

Know an empty building we have missed?

Open data cannot see everything. Tell us about a building in Karlsruhe 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 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 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 recordHamburg, Germany555empty buildings on recordHannover, Germany203empty buildings on recordKiel, Germany66empty buildings on recordLeipzig, Germany345empty buildings on recordLuxembourg City, Luxembourg73empty buildings on recordMannheim, Germany87empty buildings on recordMönchengladbach, Germany192empty buildings on recordMunich, Germany333empty buildings on recordMünster, Germany173empty buildings on recordNuremberg, Germany110empty buildings on recordStrasbourg, France30empty buildings on recordStuttgart, Germany186empty buildings on recordVaduz, Liechtenstein7empty buildings on recordWiesbaden, Germany39empty buildings on recordWuppertal, Germany236empty buildings on recordZurich, Switzerland35empty buildings on record