Frankfurt Europaviertel

Core idea

Rail yard to mixed-use urban district

Why it matters

Large central brownfield conversion

Description

A large-scale conversion, from 2005 onwards, of the former Frankfurt main freight rail yard into the Europaviertel, a mixed-use urban district west of the city centre. Led by the City of Frankfurt with the railway property company Aurelis Real Estate, the plan laid out a central boulevard flanked by offices, housing, retail and the expanded Messe trade-fair grounds, with high-rise clusters at key points. It ranks among the largest central brownfield redevelopments in Germany.

Significance

The Europaviertel typifies the German practice of converting redundant railway land into dense inner-city extensions, made possible by the privatisation of federal railway property. It has been studied both as a successful land-recycling operation and as a cautionary example in debates about the urban quality, affordability and street life of developer-led central districts.

What shaped it

• Neoliberalism (1970s–1990s)
• The skyscraper (1885)
• Transit-oriented development (TOD) (1993)

Sources

• https://www.aurelis-real-estate.de/en/developers/reference-projects/referenzprojekte/frankfurt-e
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europaviertel