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Reuse radar

Wuppertal

Wuppertal's cadastre flags 305 buildings as unused or ruined (103 large enough to map) and the city keeps a private database of 96 problem and 28 scrap properties (1 October 2025). Its building company reported about 51,000 m² of empty municipal floor space in June 2026 — two office blocks are 100% vacant — and the council was asked on 13 July 2026 to authorise buying the 34,000 m² former Kaufhof at Neumarkt. By the electricity-meter method 5.4% of homes (about 10,900) are empty.
Vacant office space60,000 m²3.6% of the stock stands empty
Empty buildings on record2246 confirmed, 11 likely
Flagged unused103buildings in the official cadastre; 7 have 3,000 m² or more
Homes potential—not in the economic model’s office data yet

Office figures: bulwiengesa (RIWIS) for the Wuppertal economic development agency, quoted in the city's answer to the Greens, 23 Aug 2023: city-wide office vacancy 3.6%, about 60,000 m² in 2022, down from 6.2% (100,000 m²) in 2014. No newer figure was found. Map built 2026-10-09.

Wuppertal 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.

Loading map…

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

Check any building in Wuppertal: 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
66Verwaltungsgebäude Steinweg 20 (Barmen) — 100% vacant
Public building named vacant · 1 other source nearby
1,755 m²—374 m
58Zoosäle (historic festival halls) at the zoo
Public building named vacant
——297 m
50gebaeudefunktion überprüfen
Flagged unused in the cadastre · Gebäude für Wirtschaft oder Gewerbe · 1 other source nearby
88,263 m²—266 m
42Near Deutscher Ring 96
Flagged unused in the cadastre · Gebäude für Wirtschaft oder Gewerbe · 1 other source nearby
—18.9 m1,018 m

Homes standing empty

Of 18 Leerstandsmelder reports on the map, 18 sit in a building we can identify — 4 of them homes. Most are single flats or buildings below co-op scale. These are whole buildings of flats that people report empty, ranked by a reactivation score: co-op scale, whether the whole building is empty, how recent the report is, location and land. A building of flats needs no change of use. Reports are public and not checked by us — each card links to its entry on Leerstandsmelder.

ScoreBuildingFloor areaReportedActions
45Völklinger Platz 5
Residential building · Extent not stated
628 m²Jul 2026
43Gennebrecker Straße 47
Residential building · Extent not stated
860 m²Oct 2024

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

Elberfeld city centre (Neumarkt, Weidenstraße, Bundesallee)

The 34,000 m² former Kaufhof, an empty city office block at Weidenstraße 25 and the listed Schauspielhaus lie within a kilometre; the city is moving to own the Kaufhof.

  • Kaufhof Neumarkt 26: about 34,000 m² gross floor area, purchase authorised on 13 Jul 2026 agenda
  • Weidenstraße 25: 945 m², 100% vacant (30 Jun 2026)
  • Elberfeld district: 22 problem and 7 scrap properties (1 Oct 2025)

Risk: The city's money is tight (no budget to buy problem properties) and its plans for the Kaufhof and Schauspielhaus are cultural and educational.

3 sources

Barmen (Steinweg, Hatzfeld)

A city-owned office building at Steinweg 20 stands entirely empty and the former Prym land at Hatzfelder Straße has been stalled for years.

  • Steinweg 20: 1,755 m², 100% vacant (30 Jun 2026)
  • Prym site: plan 1252 stalled, no new start decision
  • City-wide vacancy about 5.4% (meter method)

Risk: Barmen's Prym site depends on a traffic fix and private landowners; the city has no money to buy.

2 sources

Zooviertel and Elberfeld-West

The listed Zoosäle have been empty for more than ten years and the district council has a reported long-term vacancy at Simonsstraße 67/69; the Bundesgartenschau 2031 will raise attention here.

  • Zoosäle empty more than ten years (motion, Apr 2023)
  • Two-stage investor procedure planned with NRW.URBAN (report, May 2025)
  • Simonsstraße 67/69: student flats planned, empty for years (Apr 2026)

Risk: Planning limits rule out traditional housing at the Zoosäle; the sale procedure is restricted and non-public.

2 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

Stadt Wuppertal — Gebäudemanagement (GMW) and the Rat

The city's building company reported about 51,000 m² of empty internal space on 30 June 2026 (schools 25,000, culture and sport 14,200, social 3,200, offices and others 8,600). Two office blocks (Steinweg 20, Weidenstraße 25) are fully empty; the council can decide to sell or let them. Ask GMW for the full list and the Rat for a disposal on a concept basis.

1 source
City agency

Stadt Wuppertal — problem and scrap properties (Ressort 101)

The city lists 96 problem and 28 scrap properties (empty flats plus building defects). It cannot buy (no budget) but uses the pre-emption right and forced sales; each time so far a buyer signed a refurbishment commitment under §28 BauGB instead. A co-operative can step in as that buyer with finance and a refurbishment plan.

1 source
Allocation rule

Council motion for a building-level vacancy register

On 9 Sep 2026 Die Linke and the Greens asked the administration to turn the meter-based monitoring (5.4%, about 10,900 homes) into a register and a public reporting tool, with results due by 31 Mar 2027. Offer the city a co-operative as the 'activation partner' for owners.

1 source

Signals to watch

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

  1. 2026-09-09
    Motion to build a vacancy register

    Die Linke and the Greens ask for a building-level register on top of the meter method, which gives 5.4% (about 10,900 empty homes).

    1 source
  2. 2026-08-31
    City names its empty office buildings

    The building company answers that 51,000 m² of municipal space is empty; Steinweg 20 (1,755 m²) and Weidenstraße 25 (945 m²) are 100% vacant after offices moved into the former Bundesbahndirektion.

    1 source
  3. 2026-07-28
    Cadastre flags 305 buildings

    The July 2026 NRW cadastre records 247 of Wuppertal's 122,384 buildings as unused and 58 as ruined; 103 have a footprint of at least 150 m².

    1 source
  4. 2026-06-24
    Council asked to buy the former Kaufhof

    Decision paper for 13 July 2026: negotiate and sign the purchase of Neumarkt 26; exclusivity with the owner until 31 August 2026.

    1 source
  5. 2026-01-26
    96 problem and 28 scrap properties on the city's list

    The administration reports the counts as of 1 Oct 2025 and says it has no funds to buy such buildings.

    1 source
  6. 2025-05-02
    Zoosäle: two-stage investor search announced

    A heritable-building-right sale of the listed hall, run with NRW.URBAN; traditional housing excluded.

    1 source

Sources and freshness

20 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
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
2026-10-09
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 API0Live
2026-10-09
Official public notice (§ 39 ZVG)
OpenStreetMap disused/abandoned tags and brownfields
OpenStreetMap contributors
Open API140Live
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 download9 buildings sizedLive
2026-10-09
CC BY-NC 4.0 (heights); footprints from OpenStreetMap and Microsoft: ODbL
Heights: 3D building models LoD2 (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Bezirksregierung Köln, Geobasis NRW
© Geobasis NRW (Datenlizenz Deutschland – Zero – Version 2.0). The models record no storeys, so the eaves height (lowest roof edge − ground, tallest part) is turned into storeys. Read per building from the state’s OGC API (CityJSON); the same model as the 1 km CityGML tiles on opengeodata.nrw.de. robots.txt: none on ogc-api.nrw.de (9 Oct 2026).
Open API333 buildings sizedLive
2026-10-09
Datenlizenz Deutschland – Zero 2.0
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 permission18Live
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 API60Live
2026-10-09
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
2026-10-09
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
2026-10-09
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 research7Live
2026-10-09
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
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)
Buildings the cadastre flags unused or ruined (ALKIS)
Geobasis NRW — Liegenschaftskataster (ALKIS Grundrissdaten, NAS)
Open download103Live
2026-10-09
dl-de/zero-2-0
Administration buildings in the cadastre (ALKIS)
Geobasis NRW — Liegenschaftskataster (ALKIS), OGC API Features 'lika'
Open API27Live
2026-10-09
dl-de/zero-2-0
Office buildings mapped in OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap contributors (via overpass.openstreetmap.fr)
Open API174Live
2026-10-09
ODbL 1.0
Brownfield land mapped in OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap contributors (via overpass.openstreetmap.fr)
Open API20Live
2026-10-09
ODbL 1.0

What this radar cannot see yet

  • The city's database of problem and scrap properties (124 buildings) is not public; only counts are given in council answers.
  • The 'Potenzialflächen-Online' site database is password-protected, and the 2017 list of municipal buildings is too old to use.
  • wuppertal.de, wz.de and wuppertaler-rundschau.de answered automated requests with 403, so the Zoosäle sale page and local press on the Kleeblatt post building (13,344 m², flagged unused) could not be read — leads for a person.
  • Council papers: titles of about 5,500 papers back to May 2022 were read through the open OParl interface; only titles naming empty buildings were followed up.
  • Floor area: the cadastre records no storeys; the NRW 3D building model (LoD2) still needs an adapter.

Know an empty building we have missed?

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

Antwerp, Belgium305empty buildings on recordBerlin, Germany1,875empty buildings on recordBielefeld, Germany101empty buildings on recordBochum, Germany155empty buildings on recordBonn, Germany141empty buildings on recordBremen, Germany205empty buildings on recordCologne, Germany374empty buildings on recordDortmund, Germany304empty buildings on recordDresden, Germany341empty buildings on recordDuisburg, Germany141empty buildings on recordDüsseldorf, Germany46empty buildings on recordEindhoven, Netherlands3empty buildings on recordEssen, Germany224empty buildings on recordFrankfurt am Main, Germany208empty buildings on recordHamburg, Germany524empty buildings on recordHannover, Germany197empty buildings on recordLeipzig, Germany342empty buildings on recordLuxembourg City, Luxembourg73empty buildings on recordMannheim, Germany82empty buildings on recordMunich, Germany316empty buildings on recordNuremberg, Germany109empty buildings on recordStuttgart, Germany175empty buildings on recordUtrecht, Netherlands13empty buildings on record