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Reuse radar

Wiesbaden

Wiesbaden's largest empty buildings sit with public or semi-public owners. The former Galeria Kaufhof on Kirchgasse (about 24,000 m², closed June 2023) is still unused, and a 1970s tax-office tower on the Schiersteiner Berg (about 14,000 m²) has stood empty since 2022 while the state pays about €3.7 million a year in rent until 2035. The city company GeWeGe holds the listed Palasthotel, social housing with 85 flats until 2023, and in September 2025 the council chose to test offers for a heritable lease of up to 99 years instead of selling it.
An empty building in Wiesbaden with homes, balconies and neighbours drawn onto it in ink
Empty buildings on record
39
and 7 more with an empty shop, flat or floor
Vacant office space
—
not yet measured
Homes potential
—
not in the economic model’s office data yet

Office figures: No broker report could be read. The only Wiesbaden office report found, Colliers 'Marktbericht Bürovermietung Wiesbaden 2025/2026' (February 2026), sits behind a Cloudflare bot challenge (HTTP 403), and the konii.de summary of it needs a login. The city's Immobilienmarktbericht 2026 (Gutachterausschuss) covers land and housing prices, not office vacancy. Wiesbaden has no published figure of its own. Map built 2026-10-16.

Empty buildings in Wiesbaden

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 list of empty buildings. Hesse's Leerstandsgesetz (in force since November 2025) lets the city require approval for homes left empty more than six months, but Wiesbaden has adopted no bylaw (a motion was not reached on 11 Feb 2026), so there is no case list; the city-centre vacancy management publishes no register either.

Loading map…
Colour = type of building named officially likely reported
Missing a building?

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

Where conversion makes sense, and who to talk to

The districts where empty space, the right zoning and a working neighbourhood come together, and the owners and programmes that open a door.

A hand outlining a neighbourhood on a city map, with small houses drawn inside

Innenstadt (Kirchgasse, Langgasse, Mauritiusplatz)

The closed Galeria Kaufhof, the SEG-owned former SportScheck and the city's Walhalla lie within a few hundred metres in the main shopping streets, and the council has asked twice in a year for a report on shop vacancy.

  • Galeria Kaufhof (about 24,000 m² GFA) closed 30 June 2023
  • SEG bought the empty SportScheck after the owner's insolvency; interim market Nov–Dec 2025
  • Committee heard the city manager's vacancy report on 3 Feb 2026

Risk: The largest building is privately owned and the city's study did not test housing; the deep 1950s–70s floor plates need light wells before people can live in them.

3 sources

Kochbrunnenplatz (Palasthotel)

The city's housing company owns a listed former hotel that housed 85 social flats until 2023 and now stands largely empty; the council is testing heritable-lease offers.

  • 85 social flats until 2023; 7 tenant households left
  • Sale rejected 28 to 39 on 11 Sep 2025
  • Heritable lease of up to 99 years tested in three variants

Risk: Refurbishment is estimated at about €40 million, and the council can still choose a hotel-led offer or no fixed use.

2 sources

Schiersteiner Berg (Behördenzentrum)

A 1970s state office tower with about 14,000 m² has stood empty since the tax office moved out in October 2022; the owner has dropped its demolition plan.

  • About 700 staff moved out in Oct 2022
  • Rent about €3.7 million a year in 2025
  • Demolition and new office quarter cancelled for cost reasons

Risk: The state's lease runs to 2035 without a vacancy clause, so the owner is paid for an empty building and has little reason to hurry.

2 sources

Mainz-Kastel (Kastel Housing Area)

A former US housing area being turned into a model quarter by the city companies, with one barracks building already converted into 18 flats.

  • Former barracks building converted into 18 flats (GWW)
  • 250 homes planned in the Wiesbadener Straße part, 104 subsidised by Aug 2028
  • Release of the remaining US-used land unknown

Risk: Most new homes are new build, and the parts still used by the US forces have no release date.

2 sources

Signals to watch

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

  1. 2026-09-10Walhalla: preparatory works under way

    The side aisle along the ballroom was being taken down and the removal of pollutants was nearly finished; the council still has to decide on the refurbishment itself.

    1 source
  2. 2026-05-03Hesse paid €6.1 million rent for empty buildings

    The state paid about €6.1 million in 2025 for vacant rented properties, mostly from the LEO sale-and-leaseback, and plans to give up about 30% of its office space in the coming years.

    1 source
  3. 2026-02-03Rotes Hochhaus: passage to be demolished

    After the SEG took over the high-rise complex in Schelmengraben at the end of 2025, the planning committee backed demolishing the empty shopping passage for a supermarket and a pharmacy.

    1 source
5 earlier signals
  1. 2025-11-28
    Advent market in the empty SportScheck

    The city manager opened an interim market in the former SportScheck on Langgasse, which the SEG bought after the owner's insolvency; a long-term use is to follow.

    1 source
  2. 2025-11-20
    Hesse's vacancy law in force

    The Leerstandsgesetz, passed on 13 November 2025, lets cities with tight housing markets require approval for homes left empty more than six months.

    1 source
  3. 2025-09-11
    Council keeps the Palasthotel and tests heritable leases

    A motion to sell was rejected 28 to 39; the council decided to seek offers for a heritable lease of up to 99 years in three variants.

    1 source
  4. 2025-09-03
    BKA to leave all seven Wiesbaden sites

    The federal government confirmed that all Federal Criminal Police Office properties in Wiesbaden (seven at present, 5,369 posts) are to be replaced by one new campus; no timetable or after-use was given.

    1 source
  5. 2025-09-02
    Study on the empty Galeria building

    A study for the city priced five mixes of use for the 24,000 m² former Kaufhof; retail plus offices came out most economic, and housing was not tested.

    1 source

Sources, and what we cannot see

25 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.

Every source, its licence and when we last read it
SourceAccessRecordsStatusLicence
Federal property for sale (BImA)
Bundesanstalt für Immobilienaufgaben (BImA)
Live sales of federal buildings and land (the open API behind the BImA property search; rentals, garages and parking left out). A disposal is an open route in; it does not say the building stands empty.
Open API0Live
2026-10-16
No licence stated — public sale offers, credited to the BImA
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
2026-10-16
Official public notice (§ 39 ZVG)
OpenStreetMap disused/abandoned tags and brownfields
OpenStreetMap contributors
Open API58Live
2026-10-16
ODbL 1.0 (© OpenStreetMap contributors)
Rail, S-Bahn and U-Bahn stations (OpenStreetMap)
OpenStreetMap contributors
Open APIscoringLive
2026-10-16
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 download30 buildings sizedLive
2026-10-16
CC BY-NC 4.0 (heights); footprints from OpenStreetMap and Microsoft: ODbL
Heights: 3D building models LoD2 (Hessen)
Hessische Verwaltung für Bodenmanagement und Geoinformation (HVBG)
HVBG open geodata (Datenlizenz Deutschland – Zero 2.0). The models record no storeys, so the eaves height (lowest roof edge − ground, tallest part) is turned into storeys. One package per Kreis (Wiesbaden 285 MB, edition 29 Jun 2026), downloaded once and streamed. robots.txt on gds.hessen.de disallows / — fetched and logged under the advisory policy; the file is a plain link (16 Oct 2026).
Open download977 buildings sizedLive
2026-10-16
Datenlizenz Deutschland – Zero 2.0
Road noise (EU Environmental Noise Directive, Lden)
European Environment Agency
Open APIscoringLive
2026-10-16
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 permission19Live
2026-10-16
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
2026-10-16
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
2026-10-16
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 API60Live
2026-10-16
Copernicus open data (© European Union, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service 2006–2021, EEA)
Property companies in insolvency, at the property their purpose names
Insolvency courts (Insolvenzbekanntmachungen), structured by OpenRegister
Companies in preliminary or opened insolvency proceedings whose registered business purpose speaks of land or buildings (scripts/reuse/import-insolvencies.ts, OpenRegister API — the portal itself disallows automated access, so it is never fetched). A company is placed at the street its purpose names; the rest are leads in the admin. An insolvent owner signals a possible sale, not vacancy: weak evidence.
Open API0Live
2026-10-16
Official notices (§ 5 UrhG, source credited), via the OpenRegister API
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
2026-10-16
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
2026-10-16
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 research7Live
2026-10-16
Facts cited to their publishers
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 research0Live
2026-10-16
Facts with a link to the article; the one-line summary is ours — no article text is republished
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
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
2026-10-16
ODbL 1.0 (© OpenStreetMap contributors)
Era of the buildings around it: Zensus 2022 (100 m grid)
Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis), Zensus 2022
Buildings with living space by decade of construction in the record’s 100 m grid cell — not the building itself, which may well be an office. An era is given only when at least 60% of the cell’s buildings fall within 30 years; counts are perturbed for confidentiality (Cell-Key Method).
Open downloadscoringLive
2026-10-16
Datenlizenz Deutschland – Namensnennung 2.0
Era of the buildings around it: Zensus 2022 (3 × 3 grid cells)
Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis), Zensus 2022
As the 100 m figure, over the nine cells around the record, where its own cell counts fewer than five buildings with homes.
Open downloadscoringLive
2026-10-16
Datenlizenz Deutschland – Namensnennung 2.0
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 APIscoringLive
2026-10-16
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
Commercial buildings 16 m deep or less in the cadastre (ALKIS)
Hessische Verwaltung für Bodenmanagement und Geoinformation (HVBG) — ALKIS Grundrissdaten (NAS) for Kreisfreie Stadt Wiesbaden, edition 4 Oct 2026, read by scripts/reuse/import-hessen-alkis.ts --slug=wiesbaden
Open download487Live
2026-10-16
Datenlizenz Deutschland – Zero 2.0 (HVBG open geodata, 'lizenz- und kostenfrei'; no owner data in this release)
Public-purpose and administration buildings in the cadastre (ALKIS)
Hessische Verwaltung für Bodenmanagement und Geoinformation (HVBG) — ALKIS Grundrissdaten (NAS) for Kreisfreie Stadt Wiesbaden, edition 4 Oct 2026, read by scripts/reuse/import-hessen-alkis.ts --slug=wiesbaden
Open download333Live
2026-10-16
Datenlizenz Deutschland – Zero 2.0 (HVBG open geodata, 'lizenz- und kostenfrei'; no owner data in this release)
Federal properties with empty offices or flats (BImA list, 1 Jan 2023)
Bundesanstalt für Immobilienaufgaben (BImA) — lists released under the Freedom of Information Act via FragDenStaat (request #269761); read by scripts/reuse/import-bima-vacancy-2023.ts
Freedom of information3Live
2026-10-16
No licence stated — official lists released under the IFG and published by FragDenStaat; used with credit to the BImA and FragDenStaat
Office buildings mapped in OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap contributors (via overpass.openstreetmap.fr)
Open API251Live
2026-10-16
ODbL 1.0
Brownfield land mapped in OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap contributors (via overpass.openstreetmap.fr)
Open API28Live
2026-10-16
ODbL 1.0

What this radar cannot see yet

  • No list of empty buildings. Hesse's Leerstandsgesetz (in force since November 2025) lets the city require approval for homes left empty more than six months, but Wiesbaden has adopted no bylaw (a motion was not reached on 11 Feb 2026), so there is no case list; the city-centre vacancy management publishes no register either.
  • Hesse's open cadastre (ALKIS Grundrissdaten for Wiesbaden, edition 4 Oct 2026, read in full on 15 Oct 2026) records storeys on only 256 of 117,434 buildings and a condition on four; the one flagged building over 150 m² is the Mosburg, an artificial castle ruin in Biebrich palace park, so there is no 'unused' layer. Offices are not told apart from shops and workshops, so the commerce layer is picked by plan depth and footprint, not height.
  • Floor area: only the Global Building Atlas sizes Wiesbaden's buildings today. The HVBG publishes an open LoD2 model for the city (CityGML, measured heights to about ±1 m, 272 MB), which is not read yet — it needs a floor adapter.
  • Office market: no vacancy figure could be read — the only Wiesbaden broker report found (Colliers, February 2026) sits behind a bot challenge, and the city publishes no office figure of its own.
  • Military and federal land: the US Army housing areas (Hainerberg, Aukamm, Crestview) are still in use, and the federal criminal police office (BKA) is to leave all seven of its Wiesbaden sites for one new campus with no timetable or addresses, so neither is mapped.
  • Council papers come from the city's council system (piwi.wiesbaden.de), read by hand for this radar, not mined systematically.

Know an empty building we have missed?

Open data cannot see everything. Tell us about a building in Wiesbaden 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 149 cities in the atlas

The figure on each card: empty buildings on record.

Aachen, Germany120empty buildings on recordAugsburg, Germany249empty buildings on recordBerlin, Germany1,902empty buildings on recordBielefeld, Germany103empty buildings on recordBochum, Germany160empty buildings on recordBonn, Germany149empty buildings on recordBraunschweig, Germany83empty buildings on recordBremen, Germany216empty buildings on recordChemnitz, Germany244empty buildings on recordCologne, Germany398empty buildings on recordDortmund, Germany314empty buildings on recordDresden, Germany347empty buildings on recordDuisburg, Germany147empty buildings on recordDüsseldorf, Germany62empty buildings on recordEindhoven, Netherlands10empty buildings on recordEssen, Germany225empty buildings on recordFrankfurt am Main, Germany228empty buildings on recordGelsenkirchen, Germany97empty buildings on recordHamburg, Germany555empty buildings on recordHannover, Germany203empty buildings on recordKarlsruhe, Germany90empty buildings on recordKiel, Germany66empty buildings on recordLeipzig, Germany345empty buildings on recordLiège, Belgium262empty buildings on recordLuxembourg City, Luxembourg73empty buildings on recordMannheim, Germany87empty buildings on recordMönchengladbach, Germany192empty buildings on recordMunich, Germany333empty buildings on recordMünster, Germany173empty buildings on recordNuremberg, Germany110empty buildings on recordStrasbourg, France30empty buildings on recordStuttgart, Germany186empty buildings on recordWuppertal, Germany236empty buildings on record