Office figures: Newsec, Q1 2026: 925,500 m² of offices in Riga; 9.5% of A-class and 10.7% of B-class space empty; 80,000 m² under construction (no single overall rate published on the page). Homes: our economic model’s conversion engine. Map built 2026-10-09.
A tour in 3D
Buildings checked against today's sources and found empty — sites that could be well suited to the EHC model. A short film: how each one 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 ≈ 69 homes for ≈ 150 people — a potential, not a plan.
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.
No open aerial photos: the Latvian Geospatial Information Agency's orthophoto service needs an account and its host answered robots.txt with a server error (503), and the City's map server geo.riga.lv answered robots.txt with an error — building cards show Esri's World Imagery instead.
0 empty buildings · colour = type, dark ring = confirmed
Check any building in Riga: could it become homes, and could the EHC model work there?
3 buildings that the owner or a public register records as empty — whole buildings of at least 1,500 m² whose plans suit homes on paper (band A in our conversion check), not ruins and not let for interim use. Each row says who records it empty and when. We have not been to them, and a record can be out of date; those we have confirmed empty ourselves are marked as tour stops.
| Building | Floor area | Recorded empty by | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Water tower, Mazā Matīsa iela 2On the tourRoute in open Two disused heritage water towers, to be auctioned · Mazā Matīsa iela 2, Rīga · City of Riga (Property Department) | 2,053 m² | Free municipal buildings the City can hand to third parties ('Brīvās telpas') Owner's list · Rīgas valstspilsētas pašvaldība and its companies (SIA "Rīgas nami", "Rīgas satiksme", "Rīgas ūdens") · 9 Oct 2026 | |
| Avotu iela 44 (Skolas ēka)Route in open former school with a second school building · Avotu iela 44 · Rīgas valstspilsētas pašvaldības Īpašuma departaments | 3,724 m² | Free municipal buildings the City can hand to third parties ('Brīvās telpas') Owner's list · Rīgas valstspilsētas pašvaldība and its companies (SIA "Rīgas nami", "Rīgas satiksme", "Rīgas ūdens") · register read 9 Oct 2026 | |
| Administrative building, Daugavgrīvas iela 34A Former municipal administrative building · Daugavgrīvas iela 34A, Rīga · City of Riga (Property Department) | 1,522 m² | Free municipal buildings the City can hand to third parties ('Brīvās telpas') Owner's list · Rīgas valstspilsētas pašvaldība and its companies (SIA "Rīgas nami", "Rīgas satiksme", "Rīgas ūdens") · 9 Oct 2026 |
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.
| Priority | Building | Floor area | Depth | Station | Conversion check | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 78 | Lēdurgas 9 Distressed or stranded (named) · Triju vai vairāku dzīvokļu mājas · 5 storeys · 1 other source nearby | 3,786 m² | 11.8 m | 261 m | A works up to €250–500/m² | |
| 78 | Ezera 1 Distressed or stranded (named) · Triju vai vairāku dzīvokļu mājas · 4 storeys · 1 other source nearby | 2,624 m² | 15.1 m | 193 m | A works up to €250–500/m² | |
| 77 | Miera 94 Distressed or stranded (named) · Triju vai vairāku dzīvokļu mājas · 5 storeys · 4 other sources nearby | 2,354 m² | 14.8 m | 141 m | A works up to €250–500/m² | |
| 74 | Miera 101 Distressed or stranded (named) · Triju vai vairāku dzīvokļu mājas · 5 storeys · 1 other source nearby | 2,083 m² | 12.2 m | 377 m | A works up to €250–500/m² | |
| 74 | Water tower, Mazā Matīsa iela 2Confirmed empty by EHC Public building named vacant · 3 other sources nearby | 2,053 m² | 18.9 m | 199 m | A fit only | |
| 73 | Daugavgrīvas iela 34A (Administratīvā ēka)Not confirmed yet Public building named vacant · Administratīvā ēka · 2 other sources nearby | 1,522 m² | 14.7 m | 1,607 m | A fit only | |
| 73 | Former school, Skuju iela 28 Public building named vacant · 1 other source nearby | 5,101 m² | — | 161 m | — | |
| 73 | Avotu iela 44 (Skolas ēka)Confirmed empty by EHC Public building named vacant · Skolas ēka · 4 storeys · 2 other sources nearby | 3,724 m² | 15.2 m | 1,069 m | A works up to €250–500/m² | |
| 72 | Emīlijas Benjamiņas 19 Distressed or stranded (named) · Triju vai vairāku dzīvokļu mājas · 1 other source nearby | 1,900 m² | 13.3 m | 392 m | A fit only | |
| 71 | Hospitāļu 30 Distressed or stranded (named) · Triju vai vairāku dzīvokļu mājas · 5 storeys · 1 other source nearby | 2,646 m² | 15.8 m | 623 m | A works up to €250–500/m² |
Where empty offices, the right zoning and a working neighbourhood come together — and what could go wrong.
Holds about a third of the city's degrading buildings, many of them wooden houses and old industrial buildings; the former school at Avotu iela 44 is for sale.
Risk: Many degrading buildings are small wooden houses in mixed private ownership.
The left bank's older quarters carry the second-largest share of degrading buildings, and the City is selling the institution building at Alīses iela 3A.
Risk: Heritage rules in the wooden quarters raise restoration costs.
Riga's office market sits here, and the City's housing company offers 3,600 m² of empty offices at Amatu iela 4 in the Old Town.
Risk: UNESCO-listed historic centre: strict heritage rules, high prices.
Former schools and kindergartens emptied in 2026 — Skuju iela 28, Augusta Dombrovska iela 87, Baltā iela 22A, Lidoņu iela 10A, Parādes iela 24A — sit in these outer districts.
Risk: Far from the centre, in areas of falling school rolls; some are already set for sale by auction.
Who controls the space, and what a housing cooperative can actually do with them.
Publishes a list of free municipal premises that can be given to third parties, with the status of each (for sale, for lease, no decision yet). Buildings with no decision — Skuju iela 28, Augusta Dombrovska iela 87, Akmeņu iela 17 — are the moment to propose a long lease to a co-operative before a sale is decided.
The City can raise the property tax on a declared degrading building, fine its owner and co-finance restoration (up to half the cost). An owner facing the higher tax may sell or take a partner who restores the building.
Holds most of the free municipal premises (115 of 221 rows in the list, including Amatu iela 4) and builds social housing with EU funds; a partner for a co-operative that would take on and restore a building.
The City has begun a public-private partnership for 1,000 rental flats for essential municipal workers and is renovating unlet municipal flats; a co-operative could bid as a partner in such schemes.
VNĪ keeps what the State needs and sells the rest at public auction (notices on sludinajumi.vni.lv); it also offers property to public bodies and public-benefit organisations before sale. A co-op can bid at auction, or partner with a public-benefit organisation when a building is offered on that track.
Decisions, auctions and closures that change what becomes available, and when.
Council decisions of 8 July, 26 August and 23 September 2026 put Baltā iela 22A, Avotu iela 44, Alīses iela 3A, Salacas iela 28, Parādes iela 24A and the Mazā Matīsa water tower up for sale.
1,575 buildings: 1,165 declared environment-degrading (283 category A safety risk, 715 B unkept, 167 C unused and harming the street) and 410 awaiting assessment; Latgales priekšpilsēta alone has 509.
Skuju iela 28, Augusta Dombrovska iela 87, Lidoņu iela 10A and others were vacated from 1 September 2026 with no decision yet on their future.
VNĪ auctioned Teātra iela 9 (1,891 m²) for €2.72 million and named Smilšu iela 7 (first half of 2026), Lāčplēša iela 1 and Valdemāra iela 32 (second half, the Central Statistical Bureau) for disposal.
Rīgas nami will build about 250 social flats on Dzelzavas iela for €15.4 million, due in late 2029.
From 3,186 households in 2020 to 1,656 at the start of 2025; the City owns about 11,000 flats for housing support.
1,189 buildings were on the grausti.riga.lv list, 16 of them City-owned and 16 State-owned; private owners restored about 1,300 such buildings in ten years.
19 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.
| Source | Access | Records | Status | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenStreetMap disused/abandoned tags and brownfields OpenStreetMap contributors | Open API | 519 | Live 2026-10-09 | ODbL 1.0 (© OpenStreetMap contributors) |
| Rail, S-Bahn and U-Bahn stations (OpenStreetMap) OpenStreetMap contributors | Open API | scoring | Live 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 download | 296 buildings sized | Live 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 API | scoring | Live 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 permission | 0 | Pending 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 download | 0 | Live 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 download | 0 | Live 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 API | 218 | Live 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 research | 0 | Live 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 research | 0 | Live 2026-10-09 | Cited publisher per point |
| Named buildings and sites from EHC research (each with its own source) European Housing Coop research | EHC research | 16 | Live 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 API | scoring | Live 2026-10-09 | ODbL 1.0 (© OpenStreetMap contributors) |
| Buildings the City declared environment-degrading ('grausti') Rīgas valstspilsētas pašvaldība — Īpašuma departaments (data.gov.lv download, edition 15 Sep 2026); area and use from the State Land Service cadastre (GEO RĪGA copy) | Open download | 1,164 | Live 2026-10-09 | CC BY 4.0 (Rīgas valstspilsētas pašvaldība) |
| Buildings reported as possibly degrading, awaiting the City's assessment Rīgas valstspilsētas pašvaldība — Īpašuma departaments (data.gov.lv download, edition 15 Sep 2026); area and use from the State Land Service cadastre (GEO RĪGA copy) | Open download | 408 | Live 2026-10-09 | CC BY 4.0 (Rīgas valstspilsētas pašvaldība) |
| Free municipal buildings the City can hand to third parties ('Brīvās telpas') Rīgas valstspilsētas pašvaldība and its companies (SIA "Rīgas nami", "Rīgas satiksme", "Rīgas ūdens"); placed on the State Land Service cadastre (GEO RĪGA copy) | Open download | 73 | Live 2026-10-09 | CC0 1.0 (data.gov.lv dataset "Pašvaldības un kapitālsabiedrību īpašumi"); cadastre: VZD open data CC BY 4.0 |
| Free municipal premises inside larger buildings ('Brīvās telpas') Rīgas valstspilsētas pašvaldība and its companies (SIA "Rīgas nami", "Rīgas satiksme", "Rīgas ūdens"); placed on the State Land Service cadastre (GEO RĪGA copy) | Open download | 30 | Live 2026-10-09 | CC0 1.0 (data.gov.lv dataset "Pašvaldības un kapitālsabiedrību īpašumi"); cadastre: VZD open data CC BY 4.0 |
| City buildings the council decided to sell Rīgas valstspilsētas pašvaldība; placed on the State Land Service cadastre (GEO RĪGA copy) | Open download | 72 | Live 2026-10-09 | CC0 1.0 (data.gov.lv dataset "Pašvaldības un kapitālsabiedrību īpašumi", resource "Pieņemtie lēmumi par pārdošanu"); cadastre: VZD open data CC BY 4.0 |
| State- and City-owned non-residential buildings of 1,000 m² or more (cadastre) Valsts zemes dienests (cadastre), published by GEO RĪGA | Open API | 772 | Live 2026-10-09 | CC BY 4.0 (Valsts zemes dienests cadastre open data); the GEO RĪGA service states no licence of its own |
| Office buildings of 1,000 m² or more (cadastre) Valsts zemes dienests (cadastre), published by GEO RĪGA | Open API | 785 | Live 2026-10-09 | CC BY 4.0 (Valsts zemes dienests cadastre open data); the GEO RĪGA service states no licence of its own |
| Industrial buildings of 3,000 m² or more (cadastre) Valsts zemes dienests (cadastre), published by GEO RĪGA | Open API | 371 | Live 2026-10-09 | CC BY 4.0 (Valsts zemes dienests cadastre open data); the GEO RĪGA service states no licence of its own |
Open data cannot see everything. Tell us about a building in Riga that stands empty or barely used; once we have checked it, it joins the map under “Reported by visitors (checked)”.
The nearest radars. All 134 cities in the atlas
The figure on each card: empty buildings on record.