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Reuse radar

Mannheim

Mannheim has the highest office vacancy in the Rhine-Neckar region since Siemens and ABB moved out, a city-owned 1970s tower waiting for a new use, and the country's most advanced programme for turning former US barracks into neighbourhoods — allocated by best concept, not highest bid.
An empty building in Mannheim with homes, balconies and neighbours drawn onto it in ink
Vacant office space236,900 m²10.3% of the stock stands empty
On the map495buildings and sites from 5 open sources
Homes potential—not in the economic model’s office data yet

Office figures: bulwiengesa via DZ HYP Regionenstudie 2026|2027 — over 2.3 million m² of offices, 10.3% empty in 2025 (vacant area = stock × rate, a lower bound). Map built 2026-10-06.

Mannheim city profileReuse atlas: all of Europe

The map

Switch layers on by the question you are asking. Every point comes from a public record, an open dataset or a cited report; open one to see where it comes from and what the data cannot tell us.

The open Baden-Württemberg cadastre records building use but no "unused" condition and no storeys, so there is no official list of empty buildings as in Berlin; floor area here is the footprint only.

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0 points · click a cluster to zoom, a point for its sources

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.

ScoreBuildingFloor areaStationActions
61Former Siemens Mannheim branch, DynamostraßeConfirmed empty
Distressed or stranded (named)
26,000 m²456 m
58Collini Center (office tower and link building)Plans announced
Public building named vacant · 2 other sources nearby
—66 m
51Former ABB WabenbauConfirmed empty
Distressed or stranded (named)
50,000 m²393 m
43BImA offices, Köthener Weg 20
Public building named vacant
—1,201 m
43BImA offices, Suebenstraße 36
Public building named vacant
—1,073 m
43BImA housing, Suebenstraße 12–34
Public building named vacant
—1,049 m

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

Oststadt and Schwetzingerstadt (Augustaanlage)

The city’s main office boulevard, lined with older buildings, sits beside residential streets and next to two large assets leaving their old use: the Collini Center and the Theresienkrankenhaus.

  • Collini Center office tower and link building empty since the administration moved; back in city ownership after a buyer withdrew in 2024
  • Theresienkrankenhaus wards and A&E closed on 1 July 2026
  • The Amtsgericht took 5,750 m² at Augustaanlage 33 in a refurbished building (H1 2026)

Risk: Land values in the core zones are higher than in the rest of the city, and the best buildings on the Augustaanlage are being refurbished as offices.

3 sources

Fahrlach (Dynamostraße)

Siemens left 26,000 m² here in 2024; core-area zoning already permits homes.

  • Vacancy jumped from about 6% to about 11% when Siemens and ABB left (2024)
  • Mannheim vacancy 10.1% at end-2025, the highest in the region

Risk: The vacated floor plates are very deep (52–62 m measured on the cadastre), so conversion means a courtyard cut or partial new build.

2 sources

Spinelli (former US barracks)

The one conversion area with residential plots open now, allocated by concept tender with a 30% affordable quota — the most reliable route in for a cooperative.

  • Concept tender north of Anna-Sammet-Straße (August 2025) and an investor competition for Baufeld 5 (October 2025)
  • 1,800 homes planned; 980 residents by August 2026
  • A cooperative timber building (WohnWerk) already stands on the site

Risk: It is new building on former barracks land rather than reuse of an existing building, and plots go to the best concept in competition.

3 sources

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

City of Mannheim — Collini Center

The empty office tower and link building returned to the city in 2024 after the previous buyer withdrew. A new investor was announced in January 2026; until a sale is final, the city is the party to talk to.

1 source
Church property

Evangelische Kirche in Mannheim

Keeps 12 of 32 churches; five are already closed and a conversion of the Markuskirche to flats is being studied. Church land is often given on ground lease — ask for parish halls and rectories, not only the churches.

1 source
Public owner

BBT-Gruppe — Theresienkrankenhaus

The charitable owner closed the hospital’s wards in July 2026 and has not announced a future use. An early approach can shape what happens next on a large Oststadt site.

1 source

Signals to watch

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

  1. 2026-10-06Coming up
    Forced auction in Neckarau

    Residential and commercial building, Franz-Grashof-Straße 11, court value €627,000 (Amtsgericht Mannheim).

    1 source
  2. 2026-07-09
    Office take-up collapses

    Only 12,000 m² let in Mannheim in the first half of 2026.

    1 source
  3. 2026-07-01
    Theresienkrankenhaus closes its wards

    Wards and A&E moved to the Diako; no future use announced for the Oststadt site.

    1 source
  4. 2026-01-09
    New investor for the Collini Center

    The mayor announced a private investor planning student flats, a supermarket and a nursery in the existing structure.

    1 source
  5. 2025-10-07
    Spinelli Baufeld 5 competition

    Open investor competition; servicing of Anna-Sammet-Straße Nord starts in 2026.

    1 source
  6. 2025-03-21
    Protestant church cuts to 12 churches

    Five churches closed; Markuskirche being examined for flats.

    1 source

Sources and freshness

7 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
Office buildings 16 m deep or less (Baden-Württemberg cadastre)
Landesamt für Geoinformation und Landentwicklung Baden-Württemberg (LGL)
The open cadastre records building use but no storeys and no "unused" condition for Mannheim.
Open API344Live
2026-10-06
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 API1Live
2026-10-06
Official public notice (§ 39 ZVG)
OpenStreetMap disused/abandoned tags and brownfields
OpenStreetMap contributors
Open API116Live
2026-10-06
ODbL 1.0 (© OpenStreetMap contributors)
Rail, S-Bahn and U-Bahn stations (OpenStreetMap)
OpenStreetMap contributors
Open APIscoringLive
2026-10-06
ODbL 1.0 (© OpenStreetMap contributors)
Road noise (EU Environmental Noise Directive, Lden)
European Environment Agency
Open APIscoringLive
2026-10-06
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. From a one-time copy of 4 October 2026 — the API is not fetched, as it disallows automated agents.
Asking for permission8Live
2026-10-06
Credited to Leerstandsmelder.de; asking for permission
Named buildings and sites from EHC research (each with its own source)
European Housing Coop research
EHC research26Live
2026-10-06
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

What this radar cannot see yet

  • The open Baden-Württemberg cadastre records building use but no "unused" condition and no storeys, so there is no official list of empty buildings as in Berlin; floor area here is the footprint only.
  • Office vacancy by district is not published openly — brokers keep it in request-only reports.
  • The council information system disallows automated access, so parliamentary answers about vacant public buildings have to be searched by hand.
  • Leerstandsmelder has no Mannheim region, so only a handful of its reports fall inside the city; they are public reports, not checked by EHC, each linked to its entry.

Know an empty building we have missed?

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

Other radars

Berlin1,195buildings flagged unused in the official cadastreOpen the radar Hamburg654office buildings and sites in public handsOpen the radar Munich97office and commercial spaces the city lists as on offerOpen the radar Frankfurt am Main1,022offices shallow enough to become flatsOpen the radar Amsterdam890office buildings and sites in public handsOpen the radar Barcelona353office buildings and sites in public handsOpen the radar Brussels479large office and work buildingsOpen the radar Copenhagen897office buildings and sites in public handsOpen the radar Dublin945office buildings and sites in public handsOpen the radar Lisbon84brownfields and planned quartersOpen the radar Madrid801office buildings and sites in public handsOpen the radar Milan4,046office buildings and sites in public handsOpen the radar Paris517office buildings and sites in public handsOpen the radar Vienna744large office and work buildingsOpen the radar Zurich337office buildings and sites in public handsOpen the radar