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Reuse radar

Kiel

Kiel's housing market is among the tightest in Germany — about 2% of homes stood empty in the 2022 census — and no empty department store, hospital or public building on offer was found. Its big reuse sites are military: the city took over the former MFG 5 naval air base in 2020 and planned about 2,250 homes there, but since the Navy's return it keeps only a third, and the federal government has named replacement sites for about 1,600 homes on barracks and other federal land. A vacancy ordinance (since October 2024) treats flats empty for more than six months as misused.
An empty building in Kiel with homes, balconies and neighbours drawn onto it in ink
Empty buildings on record
66
and 12 more with an empty shop, flat or floor
Vacant office space
—
not yet measured
Homes potential
—
not in the economic model’s office data yet

Office figures: No published office vacancy figure for Kiel was found (Kieler Wirtschaftsförderung, IHK Kiel, bulwiengesa, Grossmann & Berger, BNP and Colliers checked on 15 Oct 2026; Engel & Völkers' Kiel report sits behind a contact form). Map built 2026-10-16.

Empty buildings in Kiel

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 open list of empty buildings: the census gives about 2% vacancy, the vacancy ordinance works without a published address list, and no current office or retail vacancy figure for Kiel was found.

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

Check any building in Kiel: 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.

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

Holtenau and Friedrichsort

Kiel's largest public land bank: the former naval air base and the southern part of the airfield.

  • Holtenau Ost: city keeps the southern third, about 700 homes
  • Airfield south: about 12 ha, about 350 homes (300 for the BImA)
  • Original masterplan: about 2,250 homes (October 2024)

Risk: The Navy is coming back; nothing is binding until purchase contracts are signed, and the airfield's south is under federal moratorium review.

2 sources

Wik

Several federal sites named for housing, a listed empty prison the city owns, and the BImA's empty flats and offices.

  • Feldstraße 234: about 325 homes (175 city, 150 BImA)
  • Eduard-Adler-Kaserne about 270 and the troop kitchen about 105 homes
  • MUG empty since 2004

Risk: The naval base is growing, and most sites depend on new Bundeswehr buildings first (around 2031–2032).

2 sources

Gaarden

The former mail centre is planned for about 900 homes on the east bank.

  • Postareal: about 5 ha, 30% subsidised
  • Development plan 1023: draft end of 2026

Risk: A private development; a co-operative could only buy into a part.

1 source

Signals to watch

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

  1. 2026-07-09All eight Kiel federal properties still under review

    The defence ministry's moratorium report lists them among 187 properties to be decided by the end of 2026.

    1 source
  2. 2026-06-11Council approves the Holtenau letter of intent

    The city keeps the southern third of the former air base; replacement sites for about 1,600 homes elsewhere.

    1 source
  3. 2026-04-15Bund and city agree on the Navy's return

    Letter of intent signed by the city, the defence ministry, the BImA and the Navy.

    1 source
3 earlier signals
  1. 2026-02
    Postareal plan goes public

    Early participation on development plan 1023 for about 900 homes in Gaarden.

    1 source
  2. 2025-10
    Federal moratorium on former military land

    187 properties frozen, Holtenau Ost among them.

    1 source
  3. 2024-10-01
    Vacancy ordinance in force

    Flats empty for more than six months count as misused, until 2029.

    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
2026-10-16
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
2026-10-16
Official public notice (§ 39 ZVG)
OpenStreetMap disused/abandoned tags and brownfields
OpenStreetMap contributors
Open API81Live
2026-10-16
ODbL 1.0 (© OpenStreetMap contributors)
Rail, S-Bahn and U-Bahn stations (OpenStreetMap)
OpenStreetMap contributors
Open APIscoringLive
2026-10-16
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 download25 buildings sizedLive
2026-10-16
CC BY-NC 4.0 (heights); footprints from OpenStreetMap and Microsoft: ODbL
Storeys: cadastre buildings (Schleswig-Holstein INSPIRE)
Landesamt für Vermessung und Geoinformation Schleswig-Holstein (LVermGeo SH)
© GeoBasis-DE/LVermGeo SH/CC BY 4.0. The storeys the cadastre records (numberOfFloorsAboveGround) × the building outline, read per building from the INSPIRE buildings WFS. No robots.txt on service.gdi-sh.de (16 Oct 2026).
Open API411 buildings sizedLive
2026-10-16
CC BY 4.0
Road noise (EU Environmental Noise Directive, Lden)
European Environment Agency
Open APIscoringLive
2026-10-16
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 permission7Live
2026-10-16
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 download4Live
2026-10-16
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
2026-10-16
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 API25Live
2026-10-16
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
2026-10-16
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
2026-10-16
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
2026-10-16
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 research9Live
2026-10-16
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
2026-10-16
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
2026-10-16
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
2026-10-16
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
2026-10-16
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
2026-10-16
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, administration, commercial and barracks buildings in the cadastre (ALKIS)
Landesamt für Vermessung und Geoinformation Schleswig-Holstein (LVermGeo SH) — ALKIS vereinfacht (OpenGBD) WFS, stored query GetGebByGemeinde for Kiel, read by scripts/reuse/import-kiel-alkis.ts
Open API382Live
2026-10-16
CC BY 4.0 (© GeoBasis-DE/LVermGeo SH/CC BY 4.0)
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 information11Live
2026-10-16
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 API407Live
2026-10-16
ODbL 1.0
Brownfield land mapped in OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap contributors (via overpass.openstreetmap.fr)
Open API20Live
2026-10-16
ODbL 1.0

What this radar cannot see yet

  • No open list of empty buildings: the census gives about 2% vacancy, the vacancy ordinance works without a published address list, and no current office or retail vacancy figure for Kiel was found.
  • No forced auctions: Schleswig-Holstein's courts publish on zvg-portal.de only for Elmshorn and Norderstedt, so Kiel's auctions are missing.
  • Schleswig-Holstein's open cadastre (ALKIS vereinfacht) records function and storeys but no condition, so there is no 'unused' flag; the INSPIRE buildings service has a condition field, but it marks only three small traffic structures in the Kiel area as 'declined' and none as ruined.
  • The federal replacement sites are named only by the city's Standortdialog page; their buildings, owners in detail and timing depend on Bundeswehr new builds and are not final.
  • Kiel's own open data (kiel.de/opendata, 134 datasets) is statistics only, with no geodata on property or vacancy; the state portal's API (opendata.schleswig-holstein.de) asks crawlers to keep off /api/.
  • Floor area: the cadastre layer carries recorded storeys; other buildings fall back on the Global Building Atlas until a floor source reads the state's open storeys.

Know an empty building we have missed?

Open data cannot see everything. Tell us about a building in Kiel 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 recordHamburg, Germany555empty buildings on recordHannover, Germany203empty buildings on recordKarlsruhe, Germany90empty buildings on recordLeipzig, Germany345empty buildings on recordMalmö, Sweden19empty 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 recordWiesbaden, Germany39empty buildings on recordWuppertal, Germany236empty buildings on record