Second Home
ADAPT APARTMENTS – temporary living in Adlershof
Home away from Home – hotels have long been using the “second home“ concept as a marketing slogan. However, in a hotel, one can’t cook meals or welcome friends or guests. Can this be a real home then? Less and less so for the growing number of those whose jobs require them to work away from their homes, sometimes for weeks at a time.
For instance, in a place like Adlershof where nearly 1,000 companies employ more than 20,000 people. Roughly ten percent of them being “guest-workers“ coming to Adlershof to work in their jobs as visiting professors, media people, executives, researchers or entrepreneurs, many of them on a regular basis. Their accomodation of choice in Adlershof is ADAPT APARTMENTS offering temporary living in one- to two-bedroom apartments furnished like full-fledged private flats.
Guests from all parts of the globe
“People need to feel at home in order to be able to work successfully,“ emphasises Ralf Krause, Managing Director of ADAPT APARTMENTS BERLIN GmbH, a subsidiary of Helm Holding in Wetzlar, based in Adlershof. On 1 November 2012, the first 43 apartments were ready for occupancy. “Since that time, a regular group of steady customers has evolved,“ Krause says, adding that the visitors‘ feedback keeps putting a smile on his face as the business idea seems to have hit the bull’s eye. Guests are arriving from all parts of the globe. “There is hardly a nationality left that hasn’t been visiting,“ he adds proudly.
One look at the interior explains why. 34 or 59 square metres in size, the apartments feature warm and welcoming colours, upmarket furniture, and attractive materials such as leather or fine fabric. This concept of temporary high-quality living is further supplemented by a kitchen and convenient bathroom, floor heating, a separate bedroom in the two-room apartments and, if desired, a variety of service offers. Each apartment features a terrace or balcony looking out on the “Forum“, the central square on Adlershof campus, as well as on the location’s two landmarks: the “Trudelturm“ (a towershaped vertical wind tunnel) and the “Großer Windkanal“ (large wind tunnel). There is a supermarket just around the corner, while a bank, several medical practitioners as well as various cafés and restaurants can be found right on the campus doorstep.
Those who feel so much at home that they don’t even want to step outside, can have their groceries or laundry delivered to their door. Services are entirely tailored to the visitors‘ needs and “inconspicuous, much like a good waiter,“ Krause adds with a smile.
Krause remembers the very first guest well: a businessman from India who had bought an enterprise in Adlershof. By now a regular guest, he is is an amateur cook who occasionally enjoys the grocery service’s delivery of exotic ingredients such as special types of rice or spices that cannot easily be found in local shops.
Further 45 apartments are currently being built
According to Krause, the concept of “temporary living“ has been attracting wide interest around Adlershof from the start. Eight out of ten curious people who view the apartments end up booking, Krause explains, confident. Given this brisk demand, it´s no wonder that a further 45 apartments are currently being built. By the project’s completion in 2015, a total of 180 apartments will be available.
The vernacular says: The food must be good if the landlord dines in his own restaurant. This likewise applies to “hotel manager“ Krause, originally from Hildesheim near Hannover, who is his own regular guest, staying in Adlershof three to four days a week. Can promotion be any more convincing?
By Rico Bigelmann for Adlershof Special