Cologne in the rental trap: 300 million euros for Kaufhof headquarters!

Cologne in the rental trap: 300 million euros for Kaufhof headquarters!

In Cologne, it is currently bubbling around the urban real estate contracts. Two years ago it became known that the city of Cologne has no purchase option for the technical town hall that has been rented since 1995. At that time, the city council had decided to anchor this option into the rental agreement, but the city administration at the time under the top city director Lothhar Ruschmeier ignored this political mandate, which now raises questions whether the Cologne city administration has led the city council in the event of important construction projects.

The municipal auditing office has confirmed in a current report that the city of Cologne could have suffered “material damage”, which according to estimates is considerable. A lot of information was only applied to politicians on request, and the entire documentation for the processes is more than incomplete. The Rundschau points out that the city has to raise a total of 556.9 million euros from 1995 to 2025, which was finally completed in 1998 and whose built-up costs are completed at 317.3 Millions of euros.

missing purchase option and expensive rental contracts

Kern is problematic that the rental agreement for the newly rented Kaufhof headquarters also does not contain any purchase option. The city will have to pay more than 300 million euros for this property by 2050, plus another 50 million euros for necessary conversions. These must be handled by the landlord, which severely restricted the influence of the city on the design, such as KStA

The political assumption that the Kaufhof headquarters could serve as an interim for the inner city fire station turned out to be a fallacy. The department under building department Markus Greitemann now pleads for an alternative property on Löwengasse, since the renovation of the Kaufhof headquarters supposedly too expensive.

The complete responsibility for this misery could be in the past. An investigation took place, which was initiated by the FDP parliamentary group manager Ulrich Breite after the administration was to terminate the rental contract for the town house east. He set up that the 1997 rental agreement contains a clause that also binds the termination for other contracts. Here the city administration sees its actions critically, especially since urban development for sustainable urban development is now supporting various programs.

Overall, the situation in Cologne's real estate policy is a lesson about how important communication and transparency is between the political committees and the city administration. Programs such as "lively centers" and "growth and sustainable renewal" are intended to serve in the future to improve the city structure and to remedy grievances. After all, Cologne needs a good hand to strengthen the city center and its people sustainably and not to fall in expensive traps.