Taking shape on a bend of the River Spree in central Berlin, opposite the Chancellery and in sight of the Reichstag, is a striking 19,000 m2 building that CA Immo is developing at an estimated cost of EUR 100 million.
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cube berlin is one of three buildings the Austrian company is constructing at Europacity, a 60-hectare area in the heart of the German capital. It is part of a master plan to deliver 750,000 m2 of commercial buildings and apartments in the district, which began with the opening in 2006 of the city’s new central railway station.
CA Immo purchased almost half of the Europacity site 11 years ago when it bought a substantial German land bank from the federal government for EUR 1 billion. It aims to develop just over half of the Europacity master plan’s real estate and, to date, has delivered the German headquarters of oil giant Total and accountancy firm KPMG, a hotel and two other buildings.
cube berlin, Europacity
The developer and office landlord is using cube berlin as its prototype for the smart office of the future. Aside from providing flexible workspace, the building’s computer will process data generated by occupiers and use artificial intelligence as a ‘brain’ to operate more efficiently. Occupiers will be able to enter their preferences for using the building on a mobile app.
CA Immo estimates that its land bank in Germany, which includes sites in Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Mainz, has a fully developed value of around EUR 4.2 billion. The pipeline of large-scale projects in Germany complements the prime offices and hotels that it owns in the major city centres of Austria and other Central and Eastern European countries.
Germany represents 47% of CA Immo’s portfolio today. The resilience of its economy, rising rents and strong international demand for assets in major cities like Berlin have silenced critics of CA Immo’s entry into the German market through the land bank purchase.
TH Real Estate will acquire cube berlin for an undisclosed sum when its construction completes next year.