New Dimensions
Adlershof has expansion space
Any flourishing business location will appreciate the availability of additional expansion space. While this is often scarce, Adlershof, the City of Science, Business and Media, has plenty of that to offer. Despite its continuous growth, there still is ample potential, and it is being unlocked.
He was an extraordinary businessman and a creative mind: Inventor and aircraft constructor Arthur Müller operated Germany’s first airplane landing field right where the science and business location of Adlershof is situated today. To this day, there are some listed buildings left bearing witness to the dazzling past of the place that so appropriately matches the present location. “Everything started with Arthur Müller. He is the instigator, so to speak, of Adlershof’s modern success story,“ explains Walter Leibl, CEO of Adlershof Projekt GmbH.
Today, however, those who turn into Groß-Berliner Damm coming from the north will face waste land and run-down buildings that betray little of the place’s former splendour. Yet, as on Segelfliegerdamm, there is great potential for businesses, service providers and scientists who may want to locate here in the future. Leibl puts one thing straight: “The development of Berlin Adlershof is far from complete.“ Currently, new areas are being cleared for marketing, and there is no lack in prospective investors, for instance regarding plots between 5,000 and 8,000 m² along the southern stretch of Groß-Berliner Damm.
“An excellent location,“ confirms Sales and Marketing Manager Ute Hübener and adds: “We are particularly happy about the response from family businesses who want to locate on their own property complete with production, administration and R&D facilities.“ Further areas surrounding the new “axis of investment“ are currently being prepared. These include several prime premises close to the park, suitable for higher-end service providers and research institutes. “We will take great care to select suitable investors,“ says Hübener. Which implies that this will not be the place for trivial functional architecture.
New dimensions are reached as well by the location policy along Segelfliegerdamm. Here, allotments ranging between 800 and 1,000 m² in size will attract smaller service providers and craft enterprises. But there is even more potential. Joint with the Deutsche Bahn AG it will be planned as to how the “Gleislinse”, an area the size of nearly 400,000 m² surrounding the Schöneweide railway yard, can be developed. Doubtlessly, in a few years time, this attractive extra space will be of great value to the location.
All these projects are ultimately facilitated by subsidies from the GRW programme (principles and guidelines for competition in the area of land-use planning, urban development and building industry) designed to improve the regional economic structures. And the investment pays off, creating jobs at a location which, even in economically trying times, has proved robust thanks to its broad mix of technology-oriented businesses.
by Chris Löwer