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Reuse radar

Nantes

Nantes publishes more than most French cities: the Ville de Nantes posts its building-safety police orders as PDFs, and 21 bans on living in or entering a house, building, flat or floor had no published lifting in October 2026, 8 of them for a whole house or building; the Métropole’s open-data portal gives the plots the PLUm reserves for social housing. The office market is soft (BNP Paribas Real Estate: 6.4% vacancy at the end of June 2026, 44,000 m² let in six months) and 47 permits since 2013 have each created at least 300 m² of homes from offices and public buildings. The big public vacancies are still to come: the CHU leaves the Hôtel-Dieu (about 10 ha, a 76,000 m² main building) at the end of 2027, while the City’s former Crédit municipal, empty since 2016, goes on an 80-year lease to Nantes Métropole Habitat for 32 social homes.
Vacant office space6.4%of the office stock stands empty (the floor area is not published)
Empty buildings on record431 confirmed
On the map356buildings and sites from 14 open sources
Homes potential—not in the economic model’s office data yet

Office figures: BNP Paribas Real Estate, end of June 2026 — a 6.4% vacancy rate for Nantes (the average of the eight cities it tracks is 7.0%) and 44,000 m² taken up in the first half of 2026; the report gives no vacant floor area for Nantes. Map built 2026-10-09.

Nantes 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.

There is no open list of empty buildings or homes: the national vacant-homes file (LOVAC) is restricted to public authorities, and no City list of vacant buildings was found.

Loading map…

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

Check any building in Nantes: 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 areaDepthStationActions
48Nantaise & Regionale Ste,centrales À Vapeur
Distressed or stranded (named) · friche industrielle
——479 m
42Drfip
On public land · Centre des Finances Publiques · 1 other source nearby
4,729 m²—1,343 m
36Total France (Depot Societe Des Stockages De L'Ouest)
Distressed or stranded (named) · friche industrielle
—39.7 m652 m
33BP Francaise Des Petroles,station Service
Distressed or stranded (named) · friche commerciale
——2,792 m
33Ancienne Station-Service Total
Distressed or stranded (named) · friche commerciale
——2,581 m
23Prairie De Mauve
Distressed or stranded (named)
——2,243 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

Centre — Graslin, Commerce and the station

The historic core holds the City’s own empty building, the former Crédit municipal, and a quarter of the city’s conversion permits: 12 of the 47 permits since 2013 lie within about 900 m of Graslin, mostly former offices.

  • 28 of the 87 service buildings of four storeys or more without homes within about 900 m (BD TOPO)
  • 12 conversion permits within the same radius, for instance 2,317 m² of former offices at 8 rue de la Verrerie (Sitadel)
  • Former Crédit municipal: empty since 2016, 32 social homes planned for 2028 (Ville de Nantes)

Risk: The Crédit municipal stands in the protected sector, where heritage rules apply to every project; the one empty City building published so far went to the City’s social landlord, not to a call for projects.

3 sources

Hôtel-Dieu and the Loire banks

The next large public vacancy: about 10 ha and a 76,000 m² main building freed in stages from the end of 2027, beside the Île de Nantes, where the public developer SAMOA holds many brownfields.

  • CHU leaves end 2027, Établissement français du sang 2029, faculties by 2031 (Nantes Métropole)
  • 43 service buildings of four storeys or more without homes and 14 conversion permits within about 1.3 km (BD TOPO; Sitadel)
  • 18 Cartofriches sites within the same radius, several held by the Métropole and SAMOA

Risk: The Hôtel-Dieu’s programme is undecided and the buildings are not yet empty; most Île de Nantes brownfields are held by SAMOA and the Métropole for their own projects.

4 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

Ville de Nantes — empty City buildings on long leases

The City keeps ownership of the former Crédit municipal and lets it for 80 years to its social landlord, Nantes Métropole Habitat, with an exceptional subsidy from the City. A housing co-op can ask for the same treatment of other empty City buildings, alone or with a landlord; the council deliberation is where a project like this becomes public.

2 sources
City agency

Nantes Métropole — habitat participatif

The Métropole runs calls for expressions of interest on plots, works with communes and developers to release them, and pays €10,000 when a landlord or co-operative needs a project-management team for the participatory process. It counts 15 completed projects, 9 self-promoted programmes and 9 under construction or design, and runs monthly meetings through La Maison de l’Habitant and the association L’Echo-habitants.

1 source
Allocation rule

State and its companies — public land for public-sector housing (law of 29 June 2026)

Law no. 2026-553 lets the authority depart from a local plan’s destination rules for housing on land held by a public body or public company, if at least half the homes go to public agents or public-service employees. The State’s inventory counts 44 office and finance-centre buildings in Nantes.

2 sources

Signals to watch

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

  1. 2026-08-01
    Vacancy up across the regional office markets

    BNP Paribas Real Estate puts vacancy in eight regional cities at 7.0% at the end of June 2026 against 6.1% a year earlier, with Nantes at 6.4%.

    1 source
  2. 2026-07-03
    New law on housing in public buildings

    Law no. 2026-553 of 29 June 2026 lets housing projects on public land depart from the plan’s destination rules if at least half the homes go to public agents.

    1 source
  3. 2026-06-01
    Two flats at 13 rue Buffon banned from habitation after a ceiling collapse

    After the ceiling of a second-floor flat collapsed on 3 May 2026, the City banned living in the second- and third-floor flats until works are certified by an expert (orders 2026SRC37 and 2026SRC38).

    2 sources
  4. 2026-01-05
    Two houses on boulevard des Anglais banned from habitation

    The City banned living in the houses at 52 and 54 boulevard des Anglais until works make them habitable (orders 2026SRC01 and 2026SRC02); no lifting is published.

    2 sources
  5. 2026
    14,854 private homes empty, 2,399 for two years or more

    Cerema's LOVAC file (tax records) counts 14,854 private homes vacant on 1 January 2025, 2,399 of them for two years or more, against 155,375 private homes. The 2026 edition changed method, so it runs above earlier years; the address-level file goes only to local authorities.

    1 source
  6. 2025-12-05
    Council decides to restore the former Crédit municipal as social housing

    32 social homes and a medical practice for about €11 million, with an exceptional City subsidy of €3.805 million; works from 2026, delivery in 2028.

    2 sources

Sources and freshness

25 sources connected. 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 API53Live
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 download2 buildings sizedLive
2026-10-09
CC BY-NC 4.0 (heights); footprints from OpenStreetMap and Microsoft: ODbL
Storeys and heights: BD TOPO buildings (IGN)
Institut national de l’information géographique et forestière (IGN)
Source : IGN – BD TOPO®. Recorded storeys (nombre_d_etages) where given, else the eaves height (lowest roof above lowest ground).
Open API62 buildings sizedLive
2026-10-09
Licence Ouverte 2.0 (Etalab)
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 permission1Live
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 API29Live
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 research4Live
2026-10-09
Facts cited to their publishers
Listed buildings: Mérimée (monuments historiques)
Ministère de la Culture (Plateforme ouverte du patrimoine)
Buildings classés or inscrits as monuments historiques, wholly or in part (the part is named). A monument counts when its point lies in the record’s BD TOPO outline or on its façade (within 3 m).
Open downloadscoringLive
2026-10-09
Licence Ouverte 2.0 (Etalab)
Year built: IGN BD TOPO buildings
Institut national de l’information géographique et forestière (IGN)
The date a building appeared (date_d_apparition, from the land tax files) of the BD TOPO building a record sits in.
Open APIscoringLive
2026-10-09
Licence Ouverte 2.0 (Etalab)
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)
Permits turning offices, shops and public buildings into homes (Sitadel, 2013–2026)
SDES (Ministry for Ecological Transition) — Sitadel, list of planning permits creating homes
Open download47Live
2026-10-09
Licence Ouverte Etalab 2.0
Whole houses and buildings closed by a police order (access, habitation or occupation banned)
Ville de Nantes — Les actes réglementaires de la Ville de Nantes (arrêtés de police, metropole.nantes.fr)
Open download8Live
2026-10-09
No licence stated — regulatory acts published online by the Ville de Nantes, used with credit to the publisher
Flats and floors under a police ban on living in them or entering them
Ville de Nantes — Les actes réglementaires de la Ville de Nantes (arrêtés de police, metropole.nantes.fr)
Open download13Live
2026-10-09
No licence stated — regulatory acts published online by the Ville de Nantes, used with credit to the publisher
Plots reserved for social housing in the PLUm (emplacements réservés pour mixité sociale)
Nantes Métropole — PLUm (plan local d’urbanisme métropolitain), prescriptions surfaciques, via data.nantesmetropole.fr
Open API16Live
2026-10-09
Licence Ouverte (Etalab), as stated on data.nantesmetropole.fr
Disused sites with no project yet (Cartofriches)
Cerema — Cartofriches (sites référencés, edition 7 October 2026)
Open download5Live
2026-10-09
Licence Ouverte Etalab 2.0
Brownfields with a project, and unchecked former industrial sites (Cartofriches)
Cerema — Cartofriches (sites référencés, edition 7 October 2026)
Open download43Live
2026-10-09
Licence Ouverte Etalab 2.0
Service buildings of four storeys or more with no homes (IGN BD TOPO)
IGN – BD TOPO, via the Géoplateforme
Open API87Live
2026-10-09
Licence Ouverte Etalab 2.0
State-owned offices and administrative buildings (State property inventory, 2021)
DGFiP — Direction de l'immobilier de l'État, Parc de l'immobilier de l'État au 31/12/2021 (data.economie.gouv.fr)
Open API44Live
2026-10-09
Licence Ouverte Etalab 2.0
State buildings handed back to the State's property service for disposal (State property inventory, 2021)
DGFiP — Direction de l'immobilier de l'État, Parc de l'immobilier de l'État au 31/12/2021 (data.economie.gouv.fr)
Open API3Live
2026-10-09
Licence Ouverte Etalab 2.0
State land recorded as wasteland (State property inventory, 2021)
DGFiP — Direction de l'immobilier de l'État, Parc de l'immobilier de l'État au 31/12/2021 (data.economie.gouv.fr)
Open API3Live
2026-10-09
Licence Ouverte Etalab 2.0

What this radar cannot see yet

  • There is no open list of empty buildings or homes: the national vacant-homes file (LOVAC) is restricted to public authorities, and no City list of vacant buildings was found.
  • The police-order list starts in July 2022 and is mostly flats; "in force" means no published lifting, and about 40 scanned PDFs were read by OCR, so an address may be misread — open the order before relying on it.
  • CBRE’s Nantes office figures sit behind a bot challenge and were not read; BNP Paribas Real Estate gives the vacancy rate and take-up but no vacant floor area for Nantes.
  • Live disposals of State property (cessions.immobilier-etat.gouv.fr) answer "Access Denied" (403) to automated requests; the open State inventory is a 2021 stock list with no occupancy field.
  • The Hôtel-Dieu programme and its calendar for the Métropole’s takeover are not final; ask Nantes Métropole and SAMOA.

Know an empty building we have missed?

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

Andorra la Vella, Andorra2empty buildings on recordBilbao, Spain19empty buildings on recordBordeaux, France167empty buildings on recordGhent, Belgium37empty buildings on recordLille, France52empty buildings on recordLondon, United Kingdom1,265empty buildings on recordLyon, France44empty buildings on recordMarne-la-Vallée, France38empty buildings on recordMarseille, France468empty buildings on recordMontpellier, France23empty buildings on recordNice, France46empty buildings on recordParis, France54empty buildings on recordStrasbourg, France26empty buildings on recordToulouse, France60empty buildings on record