Clear strategies further advance Offenbach as a business location
31.01.2022 – Offenbach am Main is growing - despite coronavirus. In 2021, a number of high-profile new company relocations got underway, most notably Samson AG: the world's leading valve manufacturer announced its relocation from Frankfurt to the innovation campus in the neighboring city. According to the 2021 annual report from the Offenbach Economic Development Agency, interest in available space continued unabated, even if some projects were delayed. The feared increase in vacancies for office space has so far failed to materialize, and Offenbach remains one of the top regions in Germany in terms of the number of start-ups.
"We have laid important foundations for sustainable economic development, particularly on the Innovation Campus and in the Kaiserlei district, and we are also continuing to work hard on the necessary revitalization of our city centre," says Lord Mayor Dr. Felix Schwenke. The successes are the result of clear strategies: "With the Masterplan 2030, we have a strategy for the development of our areas, and with the business location concept, we have a strategy for the solution-oriented management of our administration. Service-oriented, easily accessible employees in the city and city group, the fastest possible approval procedures, reliable political decisions and holistic thinking - that pays off," emphasizes Schwenke.
Even though there were restrictions due to the pandemic, the individual sectors in Offenbach developed consistently: there were no serious declines in the number of employees at the workplace in 2021. Compared to the pre-corona period, the number of social security employees at the workplace remained stable and increased by a low three-digit figure in the period from March 2020 to March 2021. The economic development agency made extensive offers to mitigate the consequences of the pandemic and promoted Offenbach as a business location at various events. It worked to improve the online visibility of businesses as well as for local tradespeople and trade associations. "Our goal is to work with many stakeholders to further advance the city in transition in order to raise Offenbach's profile as a business location," says Božica Niermann, Head of Economic Development. "As a small global city with clear structures, Offenbach offers very good opportunities for this."
Outstanding settlement successes
One of the biggest relocation successes in Offenbach since the Second World War was sealed in spring 2021: The long-established company Samson AG is relocating its headquarters with around 2,000 employees from Frankfurt to the Innovation Campus in Offenbach. The leading provider of valve technology and control valves has acquired a 143,000 square meter plot of land in the north-east of the former Clariant site between Main and Mühlheimer Strasse. Samson AG, founded in 1907, has thus taken over more than half of the area still to be developed. Mayor Schwenke and the Economic Development Agency achieved this success together with INNO Innovationscampus Offenbach GmbH & Co. KG: the city had founded the company specifically for this task and used it as an instrument to purchase the site in summer 2020 in order to better manage its development.
Another important result of the extensive work of Lord Mayor Schwenke and the Economic Development Agency is the successful construction of one of Europe's largest data centers: the US data center specialist CloudHQ, which develops and operates data centers worldwide, is building it in Offenbach's east - on the former Manroland site. CloudHQ is constructing two two-storey buildings with a total of 18 data halls on an area of 15 hectares. The building construction phase began in spring 2021, work is progressing well and the first building is expected to go into operation at the end of 2022. In 2021, CloudHQ also established its German branch, the newly founded CloudHQ Germany Development GmbH, in Offenbach.
Progress has also been made in the Kaiserlei district: the automotive companies Genesis Motor Europe GmbH and Genesis Motor Deutschland GmbH, which belong to the Hyundai Group, have moved into the new European and German headquarters, and with anchor tenant Danfoss, the CO2-neutral LEIQ office building at the transition to Offenbach harbor has already grown significantly. The company dvs - Deutscher Versand Service has moved into an area of around 9,000 square meters in the Bieber-Waldhof industrial estate.
Interest in space remains at a high level
230 inquiries were received by the business development department in 2021 on a wide variety of space and usage topics. "This means that the number of interested parties remained at a high level even during the pandemic, which speaks for the attractiveness of our location," says Schwenke happily. There was no pandemic-related increase in vacant office space: Over the course of the year, the stock actually decreased slightly from the business development agency's perspective. "I am confident that we will be able to reduce further office space vacancies through modernization projects and our ongoing location marketing," says Schwenke. In the Kaiserlei district, the dismantling of the former traffic circle will be largely complete by the start of 2022, meaning that better connections and new space potential will be available there. The temporary summer building of the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, which could be realized at short notice thanks to the economic development agency, revitalized the area with numerous events. The scaffolding, reminiscent of an amphitheatre, supported the regional art and culture scene and promoted the opportunities on site at the Immofrühstück, which was held in the Sommerbau in October 2021. Further commercial space potential for urban production is emerging, particularly in Quartier 4.0 in the east of Offenbach, where development work is currently underway.
As the report also shows, Offenbach remains one of the leading business start-up locations in Germany. "The Economic Development Agency has been working intensively for years to create a positive start-up environment in Offenbach and to provide the best possible support for start-ups," emphasizes Mayor Schwenke. "We have continued to provide this advice on business start-ups in 2021 without any let-up in our commitment and have once again been successful." This also includes the "Gründerstadt Offenbach" project, which is now part of the economic development department, with its successful mentoring program, which will be further expanded in 2022. With the Impact Festival, Europe's largest event for sustainable technologies and innovations, Offenbach presented itself as an ideal location for the start-up community in mid-September. "This gave local founders an ideal opportunity to raise the profile of their future-oriented topics," reports Head of Office Božica Niermann.
Agentur Mitte advances future concept for city center
In the second year of the coronavirus pandemic, the city continued to make efforts across all specialist departments to provide comprehensive support for retail and gastronomy in Offenbach and to quickly implement the recommendations of the future concept for the city center. In 2021, €1.1 million was made available as part of the economic stimulus package for a special voucher campaign to attract customers to the city center. As a new attraction in the city center, Germany's only weather and climate workshop was opened in June in cooperation with the German Weather Service. The pop-up store in the former BB Bank also provided a boost: the City Management of the Economic Development Agency rented the space at the Stadthof for six months in August 2021, and there was a different program every month.
The new Agentur Mitte is an important instrument for further implementing the future concept for the city center: it was set up in October 2021 at the Economic Development Agency, takes over the overall coordination of the concept adopted in 2020 and is initially staffed with one position. In order to enable the financing of the planned measures, the Economic Development Agency, together with the urban planning department, applied for various federal and state subsidies. The application to the state's city center program was particularly successful: Offenbach won first prize in September 2021 for the exemplary project idea "Station Mitte" - a reorientation of the city library with additional functions as a knowledge center, cultural center and public living room - endowed with one million euros. These funds are the result of interdepartmental cooperation and political collaboration between Lord Mayor Schwenke and City Councillor Paul-Gerhard Weiß. The municipal projects "Kaufhaus Kosmopolis", the "redesign and conversion of the town hall pavilion" and the "Testraum-Allee", which aims to revitalize retail spaces, will receive an "inner city budget" of 250,000 euros from the state program. As decided at the end of November 2021, the federal government is also supporting the development of Offenbach's city center with 262,500 euros. "We have thus succeeded in obtaining 1.5 million euros in funding for the city center - money that we urgently need due to the budget situation and the tough struggle of our city center," says Mayor Schwenke.
In the second year of the pandemic, support for the creative industries was also achieved primarily through online formats: Virtual and real tours offered the mostly small companies in Offenbach the opportunity to increase their visibility and network. There were also support programs such as "Ground Floor" and the "Offenbach Lab - for Culture and Cooperation", which created a lively, collective, open community space in the city centre from June to October 2021. The design park launched in 2018, an overall concept for research and development issues with a focus on design, also made progress again after delays caused by the pandemic: in 2021, the aim was to find out what conditions are necessary to realize the design park on the Innovation Campus. In the course of this year, concrete strategies for the realization of the project should be available so that the project can be implemented.
Outlook 2022
"This report shows that Offenbach is acting in a solution-oriented manner, driving forward its goals quickly and recording tangible successes in almost all areas," said the Mayor with relief. "We are not just concentrating on individual projects - we are embedding them in an overall concept. We support projects from start to finish and ensure that decisions are made quickly instead of waiting in the wings - all full-time employees in the city council work hand in hand, well supported by the relevant department heads."
The clear strategies will continue to shape the actions of the Economic Development Agency in 2022. "As a business development agency, we see ourselves every day anew as a team of networkers and enablers," concluded Mayor Schwenke and Head of Office Niermann. "We look forward to thinking and trying out new things with companies and as many local stakeholders as possible in 2022."
