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Reuse radar

Kraków

Kraków's national topographic database records 121 buildings as out of use and 42 as ruined (footprint 100 m² or more, security buildings and the Fortress Kraków forts left out); the City's land register puts 43 of them on plots owned by the City (14), the State Treasury (25) or the Voivodeship (4). It also shows 72 large complexes of City, State and railway land in the districts it covers. The best-known empty buildings are heritage hotels: the brutalist Hotel Forum, entered in the heritage register in October 2025, and the former Hotel Cracovia, State property since 2016 with its museum plan paused. The City owns the empty historic University Hospital buildings on Kopernika. Offices stand 19.0% empty, about 356,000 m².
Vacant office space355,900 m²19% of the stock stands empty
Empty buildings on record351and 1 more with an empty shop, flat or floor; of all 352, 44 confirmed, 3 likely
Flagged unused121buildings in the official cadastre; 15 have 3,000 m² or more
Homes potential—not in the economic model’s office data yet

Office figures: BNP Paribas Real Estate Poland, end of Q2 2026 — 19.0% of the stock vacant, about 356,000 m² (read from the report chart); Property Forum puts the stock at 1,870,000 m². The eight-city regional average is 17.3% (PINK). Map built 2026-10-09.

Kraków city profileReuse atlas: all of Europe

A tour in 3D

An empty building in Kraków, and what it could become

A building checked against today's sources and found empty — a site that could be well suited to the EHC model. A short film: how it could come back to life, with what our conversion check and economic model say it could hold. A potential we spotted, not a plan.

Together, room for ≈ 19 homes — a potential, not a plan.

  1. Ujastek Mogilski 72,346 m² · ≈ 19 homes
  • activated ground floor
  • shared rooms
  • furnished mid-term flats
  • affordable long-term homes

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.

Loading map…

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

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

Where to look first

Buildings with evidence that they stand empty — a second source agrees, a public record names them, or we have checked them — ranked by a score you can read: co-op scale, daylight depth, a station nearby, a zone that allows homes, affordable land and an open route in. Checked buildings carry their result; nobody has visited them on site yet. Leerstandsmelder reports join the list when they sit in a large non-residential building and a second source agrees.

PriorityBuildingFloor areaDepthStationConversion checkActions
58Office and technical building (Poczta Polska 54/100 and Orange Polska 46/100, perpetual usufruct; State Treasury land)
Public building named vacant · office
6,740 m²—1,008 m—
52Burned hotel and petrol-station shell at Ujastek MogilskiConfirmed empty by EHC
Distressed or stranded (named) · 1 other source nearby
2,346 m²19.4 m1,794 mA fit only
43Aleja 3 Maja 55
Distressed or stranded (named) · sports hall · 2 storeys
1,526 m²12.1 m2,336 mA fit only
38Nizinna 3
Distressed or stranded (named) · single-family house · 1 storey
—8.5 m2,253 m—
33near Kocmyrzowska 3B
Distressed or stranded (named) · młyn · 2 storeys
2,702 m²26.3 m2,653 mA fit only
33Śródmieście
On public land · 1 other source nearby
——1,878 m—
31Former Hotel Cracovia
On public land · 1 other source nearby
25,495 m²52.7 m1,726 mC fit only
24Marii Konopnickiej 28
Flagged unused in the cadastre · hotel · 8 storeys · 1 other source nearby
51,032 m²—1,583 mB fit only

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

Centre — Wesoła, Kopernika and the Wawel bank

Two heritage hotels and the City's empty University Hospital buildings lie within about two kilometres: Hotel Forum, the former Hotel Cracovia, and the 1893 and 1901 clinics on Kopernika that the City bought.

  • Kopernika 21 and 15 stand empty and City-owned (Murator, 25 Jun 2024); one other building is planned for the City Library
  • Hotel Cracovia: seven storeys, 4,760 m² footprint, recorded out of use in BDOT10k (record of 21 Jan 2026)
  • Hotel Forum: 278 rooms and six conference halls, entered in the heritage register in October 2025

Risk: Heritage listing everywhere, a fund contesting the Forum's listing and a State building whose museum plan is paused: decisions sit with ministries and the conservator.

2 sources

Nowa Huta and the S7 corridor

The north-east holds a burned hotel shell on State land beside the S7 works, a two-storey school building recorded out of use and a brickworks hall of 2,639 m² at Zesławice.

  • Ujastek Mogilski 7: abandoned about 2014, burned in 2017; building-supervision case reopened (TVN24, 18 Jul 2024)
  • A school building of 1,593 m² footprint recorded out of use (BDOT10k, record of 23 Apr 2026)
  • 7 buildings of 100 m² or more recorded out of use or ruined within 3.5 km of Nowa Huta's centre

Risk: The shell is a legal deadlock (a company without a board holds the usufruct); the others are recorded only in the topographic database, with no owner named.

2 sources

Podgórze and Zabłocie

The densest scatter of out-of-use records: 26 buildings of 100 m² or more within two kilometres of Zabłocie, among them former workshops and cold stores near the old river port.

  • A four-storey workshop of 1,289 m² footprint at the old port recorded out of use (record of 26 Nov 2024)
  • 4 of the 26 records are 500 m² or larger

Risk: Most are small and partly already redeveloped (new estates cover the port area), and the flag may predate that work.

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
Allocation rule

Rada Miasta Krakowa — sales under the Housing Co-operatives Act

A council may resolve to sell municipal land only to housing co-operatives and members acting under a co-operation agreement, by limited written tender, with a repurchase right if the homes are not built (Arts. 12–19). Whether Kraków has passed such a resolution is not known to us; a group can ask the council to apply it to one of the 72 City or State land complexes. The act covers sale of land, not leases.

1 source
City agency

Gmina Miejska Kraków — Zarząd Budynków Komunalnych (vacant City flats)

The City renovates vacant flats (340 were planned for 2021) and sells those with very large floor areas and high renovation costs instead (July 2022). Ask ZBK which sold or soon-to-be-sold units sit in whole buildings. The Mayor's order of 13 January 2026 lets only individuals bid for flats in buildings of owners of unknown whereabouts, who must renovate at their own cost, so a co-op cannot use that tender as written.

3 sources
Private owner

Owner fund — Hotel Forum

The building has stood closed for two decades; the heritage listing (October 2025) obliges the fund to repair the façade and limits changes. An architect has proposed flats. Approach the fund about a long lease or a sale for a mixed housing scheme.

1 source

Signals to watch

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

  1. 2026-08
    Office vacancy 19.0%, 356,000 m²

    Against a regional average of 17.3% (PINK); Katowice (22.2%) and Wrocław (21.8%) are higher.

    1 source
  2. 2026-01-13
    Mayor's order on buildings of owners of unknown whereabouts

    The City, which manages such buildings without a curator, lets flats by tender only to individuals for their own housing, who renovate at their own cost.

    1 source
  3. 2025-11-10
    Hotel Forum entered in the heritage register

    The regional conservator values the brutalist exterior; no decision on the building's future and no timeline.

    1 source
  4. 2024-07-18
    Burned hotel shell and dump at the S7 works

    The City, police and building authority pass responsibility between them; a company without a board holds the usufruct of the State land.

    1 source
  5. 2024-06-25
    University Hospital buildings on Kopernika stand empty in City hands

    The 1893 and 1901 clinics await renovation; a City Library and a Festival Office are planned for part of the complex.

    1 source
  6. 2022-07-29
    City gives up some vacant flats

    Flats with large floor areas and high renovation costs are sold instead of renovated.

    1 source

Sources and freshness

18 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
OpenStreetMap disused/abandoned tags and brownfields
OpenStreetMap contributors
Open API242Live
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 download316 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 permission0Pending
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 download0Live
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 API221Live
2026-10-09
Copernicus open data (© European Union, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service 2006–2021, EEA)
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
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)
Buildings recorded out of use in the national topographic database (BDOT10k)
Główny Urząd Geodezji i Kartografii (GUGiK) — BDOT10k, county package 1261 (Kraków)
Open download121Live
2026-10-09
Free reuse without restriction (Prawo geodezyjne i kartograficzne art. 40a; GUGiK: no fees) — credit GUGiK. Street addresses from OpenStreetMap contributors' address points (ODbL; in Poland the national address points of GUGiK); plot ownership from the City of Kraków's land register extract (MSIP, record of 21 Oct 2024) — credit Gmina Miejska Kraków
Buildings recorded as ruined in the national topographic database (BDOT10k)
Główny Urząd Geodezji i Kartografii (GUGiK) — BDOT10k, county package 1261 (Kraków)
Open download42Live
2026-10-09
Free reuse without restriction (Prawo geodezyjne i kartograficzne art. 40a; GUGiK: no fees) — credit GUGiK. Street addresses from OpenStreetMap contributors' address points (ODbL; in Poland the national address points of GUGiK); plot ownership from the City of Kraków's land register extract (MSIP, record of 21 Oct 2024) — credit Gmina Miejska Kraków
Office buildings of four storeys or more in the national topographic database (BDOT10k)
Główny Urząd Geodezji i Kartografii (GUGiK) — BDOT10k, county package 1261 (Kraków)
Open download464Live
2026-10-09
Free reuse without restriction (Prawo geodezyjne i kartograficzne art. 40a; GUGiK: no fees) — credit GUGiK. Street addresses from OpenStreetMap contributors' address points (ODbL; in Poland the national address points of GUGiK)
Industrial and warehouse buildings of three storeys or more in the national topographic database (BDOT10k)
Główny Urząd Geodezji i Kartografii (GUGiK) — BDOT10k, county package 1261 (Kraków)
Open download63Live
2026-10-09
Free reuse without restriction (Prawo geodezyjne i kartograficzne art. 40a; GUGiK: no fees) — credit GUGiK. Street addresses from OpenStreetMap contributors' address points (ODbL; in Poland the national address points of GUGiK)
Large complexes of City, State Treasury, Voivodeship and railway (PKP) land in selected districts
Gmina Miejska Kraków — MSIP (EGiB extract: GD_Kompleksy_dzialek_GK_SP_WM_PKP_pow_1ha)
Open API72Live
2026-10-09
No licence stated — City of Kraków public information from the land and building register, used with credit to Gmina Miejska Kraków
OpenStreetMap: land mapped as brownfield
OpenStreetMap contributors (via overpass.openstreetmap.fr)
Open API43Live
2026-10-09
ODbL 1.0
Buildings Poczta Polska (State-owned) offers for sale
Poczta Polska S.A. — property sales portal
Open download1Live
2026-10-09
not stated — credited to the publisher

What this radar cannot see yet

  • The City publishes no register of empty municipal flats or buildings: ZBK lists vacant commercial units only in notices posted before each auction, and the Treasury Department's sale notices are published as documents on bip.krakow.pl; no map or data file was found.
  • BDOT10k's out-of-use and ruined flags lag reality and name no owner; Kraków's city EGiB service (geodezja.eco.um.krakow.pl) did not answer and the older msip WFS returned HTTP 499, so storeys and floor area come from BDOT10k (the city's building download layer has the register class only).
  • The land complexes extract is dated 15 August 2021 and covers only selected districts; it shows land, not buildings.
  • The Forum's and Cracovia's current status after the decisions of 2025–26 is not in any open data: only the owners and the ministries know.

Know an empty building we have missed?

Open data cannot see everything. Tell us about a building in Kraków 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.

Brno, Czechia181empty buildings on recordBudapest, Hungary392empty buildings on recordBydgoszcz, Poland276empty buildings on recordGdańsk, Poland415empty buildings on recordKošice, Slovakia34empty buildings on recordŁódź, Poland481empty buildings on recordLublin, Poland200empty buildings on recordOstrava, Czechia42empty buildings on recordPoznań, Poland307empty buildings on recordSzczecin, Poland353empty buildings on recordWarsaw, Poland1,352empty buildings on recordWrocław, Poland676empty buildings on record