Where Deutsche Welle once broadcast, 750 apartments are now being built

Created: 05/15/2022, 08:08

By: Martin Henning

From a bird's eye view: This is what the new city district could look like.

© Astoc Architects and Planners

750 new apartments in Cologne: The city council has approved the "The Wave" project.

Construction can now take place on the former Deutsche Welle site.

Cologne – Although the district is also on the Rhine, the construction project “Die Welle” got its name from another circumstance.

Deutsche Welle broadcast on the area in Cologne (Marienburg district in the Cologne-Rodenkirchen district) until 2003.

Now up to 750 apartments, commercial space and a daycare center are to be built there, right next to the Deutschlandfunk building, as 24RHEIN reports.

The Deutsche Welle broadcasting center and two other high-rise buildings have already been dismantled for this purpose.

In order to start building the new apartments, the project developers Bauwens and Die Wohnkompanie still needed the building permit from the city.

This has now happened: The city council has approved the development plan for the site.

Deutsche Welle transmitter in Cologne-Marienburg: Dismantling due to exposure to asbestos

From 1980 to 2003, Deutsche Welle had its headquarters in the radio building on the Raderberg belt.

This included two adjacent high-rise complexes.

The station moved to Bonn in 2003 due to high levels of asbestos.

Since then the buildings have stood empty.

When the current investors bought the area, they initially wanted to blow up the skyscrapers.

After objections from residents and neighboring Deutschlandradio employees, the plans were scrapped and the towers were dismantled instead.

Cologne: "The Wave" got headwind

Not without a headwind.

The public has been involved in the planning process several times in recent years and has been allowed to make statements.

The concern of the residents was, among other things, that many commercial areas and thus the mix in the quarter would be lost as a result of the new building.

Others also complained that the development with up to seven floors was too high and built too densely.

In both cases, the city referred to the need to create housing quickly.

The fact that the so-called "cooperative building land model" was not used in the project also caused resentment.

It states that at least 30 percent of the newly created living space is publicly funded – i.e. has lower rents.

The model is used, for example, in the large-scale projects in Kreuzfeld and Deutzer Hafen.

The city justifies the decision in the "The Wave" case as follows: "Due to the necessary asbestos removal, there will be no increase in land value according to the current planning status according to the calculation method of the cooperative building land model.

Therefore, the cooperative building land model cannot be used.”

Wohnkompanie spokesman Holger Römer revealed in an interview with 24RHEIN: "Nevertheless, we decided in advance to voluntarily offer ten percent of all apartments as subsidized housing." If more than 700 apartments can be built, the additional apartments would also be fewer have rents.