The topic of the old police headquarters in Frankfurt came up yesterday in the news. The Alte Polizeiprasidum building was a structure about six minutes walking....north of the main train station. Anyone ever walked around the city (as a visitor) has some memory of the massive and old structure. It was historic in appearance but was in a declining stage even in the 1970s. At some point in the 1990s....Frankfurt gave up on the structure and built a newer facility for the police.
Since 2002, the Alte Polizeiprasidum has sat there...used on one rare occasion for a movie, but simply waiting to be torn down. Planning efforts have been mounted....the city political folks fought over the use of the building....and at some point about two years ago, it was decided to just bring it up for a sale.
Well....it sold. 212-million Euro....more or less.
The developer? A regional guy who says it'll be torn down, and the property (walking distance to the train station) will turn into a hotel, apartment house, and business property.
Reaction? Well, it varies. HR told most of the story.
The city planners had various ideas over the property but the money side never materialized. They wanted to keep some of the appearance and charm.
Various other developers were looking for different ways of using the property.
In the plan, there's only 12,000 square meters of the property which will be used for subsidized housing (affordable apartments). You can do the math....figuring 80 square meters per 2-bedroom apartment, and come to just 150 apartments. The political folks are fairly negative about that.
The other side of this is that 212-million Euro will flow into the revenue pocket of the city. Few discuss how the money will be used.
I've probably walked by the building on at least forty occasions. I've never been in the building itself. You tend to stand and admire the structure. Four floors. Has a lot of appeal to it. In some ways, it's sad to see it go but to remodel it or bring it to modern codes? Forget it.
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