Office figures: Newsec, Q1 2026: 1,113,650 m² of offices in Tallinn; 7.3% of A-class and slightly over 10% of B-class space empty; no new deliveries in the quarter, 167,000 m² under construction (no single overall rate published on the page). Map built 2026-10-09.
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 register says which buildings are empty: the building register records lawful use and whether a building exists, not occupancy, and Estonia has no vacancy tax.
Check any building in Tallinn: could it become homes, and could the EHC model work there?
The articles do not give an address we could place, so these have no pin yet. From news reports, summed up in our own words with a link to each article — not checked on site by EHC.
The districts where empty space, the right zoning and a working neighbourhood come together, and the owners and programmes that open a door.
Holds half the city's large office buildings and most of the named empty public buildings: the Liivalaia courthouse, Linnahall, Narva mnt 8 and Sakala 14.
Risk: Heritage protection (Linnahall, Sakala 14) and auctions to the highest bidder put prices beyond a co-operative's reach.
The old shipyard and harbour peninsula has the most mapped ruins in the city, and the State plans to sell harbour land on Süsta street and Vesilennuki 14 in 2026.
Risk: Ruins are often industrial shells or fragments; harbour land is sold at market prices.
The second office cluster, and the most public land: the City Property Office keeps 97 plots here and the State owns large production parcels along Tooma street.
Risk: Much of the public land is zoned for production and lies between rail lines and industry.
Old wooden and stone houses in a sought-after quarter; the Municipal Police is pressing the owner of an unused house at Koidula 32 to make it safe.
Risk: Single buildings of a few hundred square metres, privately owned.
Decisions, auctions and closures that change what becomes available, and when.
Starting price €788,000; the buyer must keep and restore the wooden house the City once planned to demolish.
Former ministry offices on Tõnismägi, the national archives on Maneeži street and Mustamäe tee 33 were sold; €12 million of sales are planned for 2026, including the Liivalaia courthouse.
Mayor Peeter Raudsepp says renovating the listed, mostly abandoned hall is beyond taxpayers and proposes a new landmark in its place.
The second auction, at €4.14 million, ended on 24 November without a buyer; RKAS will review the sale conditions.
About 50,000 residents are affected by unaffordable housing; the City plans an active land policy with private partners rather than building itself.
The 2021 census counted 175,690 of 737,873 dwellings (24%) without permanent residents, up from 16% in 2011; no figure for Tallinn alone was published with it.
23 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 | 234 | 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 | 230 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 | 65 | 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 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 research | 8 | 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 mapped as ruins in the Estonian Topographic Database (ETAK) Maa- ja Ruumiamet (Estonian Land and Spatial Development Board) | Open API | 76 | Live 2026-10-09 | Maa- ja Ruumiameti avaandmete litsents (1 Jan 2025): free reuse with attribution |
| Office buildings of 1,000 m² or more in the building register (EHR) Maa- ja Ruumiamet — ETAK buildings joined to the building register (EHR) | Open API | 638 | Live 2026-10-09 | Maa- ja Ruumiameti avaandmete litsents (1 Jan 2025): free reuse with attribution |
| Industrial and warehouse buildings of 3+ storeys and 1,000 m² or more (EHR) Maa- ja Ruumiamet — ETAK buildings joined to the building register (EHR) | Open API | 167 | Live 2026-10-09 | Maa- ja Ruumiameti avaandmete litsents (1 Jan 2025): free reuse with attribution |
| State-owned parcels of 1,000 m² or more for building uses (cadastre) Maa- ja Ruumiamet — cadastre (katastriüksused omandivormiga) | Open API | 169 | Live 2026-10-09 | Maa- ja Ruumiameti avaandmete litsents (1 Jan 2025): free reuse with attribution |
| Plots kept by the City Property Office (Linnavaraamet) Tallinna Linnavaraamet (Tallinn City Property Office) | Open API | 203 | Live 2026-10-09 | No licence stated — shown with credit to Tallinna Linnavaraamet |
| City buildings registered as free (vaba) in the City's property register Tallinna Linnavaraamet (City Property Office) — the City's real-estate register (TKVR), buildings on the balance sheet of a City office | Open API | 10 | Live 2026-10-09 | No licence stated on gis.tallinn.ee — used with credit to Tallinna Linnavaraamet (EHC licence decision of 6 Oct 2026: unlicensed public layers shown with credit, removed on request) |
| City buildings being disposed of (võõrandamisel) Tallinna Linnavaraamet (City Property Office) — the City's real-estate register (TKVR), buildings on the balance sheet of a City office | Open API | 24 | Live 2026-10-09 | No licence stated on gis.tallinn.ee — used with credit to Tallinna Linnavaraamet (EHC licence decision of 6 Oct 2026: unlicensed public layers shown with credit, removed on request) |
| City buildings being declared unfit for use (kõlbmatuks tunnistamisel) Tallinna Linnavaraamet (City Property Office) — the City's real-estate register (TKVR), buildings on the balance sheet of a City office | Open API | 21 | Live 2026-10-09 | No licence stated on gis.tallinn.ee — used with credit to Tallinna Linnavaraamet (EHC licence decision of 6 Oct 2026: unlicensed public layers shown with credit, removed on request) |
| Riigi Kinnisvara AS: State buildings in Tallinn at public auction Riigi Kinnisvara AS (State real-estate company) | Open API | 5 | Live 2026-10-09 | not stated — credited to the publisher |
| 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 research | 1 | Live 2026-10-14 | Facts with a link to the article; the one-line summary is ours — no article text is republished |
| Year built: Estonian building register (Ehitisregister) Tarbijakaitse ja Tehnilise Järelevalve Amet (Ehitisregister); outlines Maa- ja Ruumiamet (ETAK) The year of first use (esmane kasutus) of the registered building whose ETAK outline a record sits in, one register request per building. "1940" in the register means 1940 or earlier. | Open API | scoring | Live 2026-10-14 | Public register data; no licence is published for the register API (ETAK outlines: Maa- ja Ruumiamet open data licence) |
| 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 API | scoring | Live 2026-10-14 | 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 |
Open data cannot see everything. Tell us about a building in Tallinn that stands empty or barely used; once we have checked it, it joins the map under “Reported by visitors (checked)”.
The nearest radars. All 149 cities in the atlas
The figure on each card: empty buildings on record.