Bielefeld triple: Lührmann brokers three large-scale tenants in the OWL regional centre

Tenants for large retail spaces have become rare; especially those who sign contracts for ten years or longer. Bielefeld, the main centre of the Ostwestfalen-Lippe (OWL) region, has had another special feature for just under two years now in the form of the LOOM shopping centre: 28,000 square metres of additional retail space have been created directly in the city centre. While in many places these challenges result in unoccupied department stores and store premises, the OWL regional centre can report no fewer than three new large-scale leases: dm Drogeriemarkt recently opened at Bahnhofstrasse 2, and numbers 23 to 25 will in future be home to Woolworth and New Yorker. These three leases not only have the many square metres in common, they also each relied on the advice of the Osnabrück-based brokerage house Lührmann, which specialises in retail real estate.

Andreas Grüß, Managing Director and a specialist in retail leasing for more than ten years, advised the three retail companies in their search for new locations in Bielefeld: ‘As a regional centre, the city is continuing to grow. So retail tenants are also eager to present themselves in a highly discernible way, with flagship character’. The situation in the market for retail space is tense and the balance of power is shifting from a landlord market to a tenant market. ‘This makes the network we have built up over many years all the more important’, Grüß continues. ‘Like in a memory game, we match requests and location preferences with vacancies’. 

dm Drogeriemarkt opened a new store at Bahnhofstrasse 2 at the beginning of June. As for the previous tenant S.Oliver, around 1,400 square metres of retail space are available there for the retailer on three floors: the basement, ground floor and first floor.

Bahnhofstrasse 23-25: two new tenants

Woolworth and New Yorker recently took over their new store locations at 23-25 Bahnhofstrasse, with each scheduled to open in late summer or fall. Woolworth has leased just under 2,000 square meters, divided between the first floor and the second floor. There, the company will offer its wide, 6,000-item product range with presentation furniture in real-wood look, combined with dark metals and walls in warm earthy colours. Woolworth currently operates 380 department stores across Germany. With more than 1,000 stores in 40 countries, New Yorker is one of Germany's most successful textile companies. The company is headquartered in Braunschweig. In Bielefeld, New Yorker has leased around 2,000 square metres of sales space, almost half of which is on the ground floor and the other half on the first floor.

Central location and attractive chain stores 

‘Bielefeld is a young cosmopolitan university city and a location that is constantly developing’, says Grüß. The absolute prime location is to be found on Bahnhofstrasse between Zimmerstrasse and Jahnplatz. In October 2017, the shopping centre LOOM, formerly City Passage, opened. According to Grüß, it now forms an attractive circuit with the prime location.

About us

We connect potential – as Germany’s real estate specialists for prime locations. There is a perfect location for every brand, every tenant and every project. Lührmann Germany, headed by Managing Directors Achim Weitkamp, Mario Hampel and Michael Backhove, operates from six locations. Berlin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich and Osnabrück form the optimal network to consolidate our expertise in the business areas of Retail, Office, Hotel & Hospitality, City Investment and Big Box Retail for you. This enables us to reach all locations in German metropolitan regions within a very short time. And our excellent knowledge of properties, people and markets, combined with a passion for the perfect deal, provide the conditions for a perfect match. And this has been the case since 1992.

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