SPECIAL REPORT: LAND DEVELOPMENT Tenants range from small PR agencies, solicitors’ offices, and medical
specialists to internationally renowned operating companies like Porsche, dairy giant Dannon, and Siemens, who relocated its regional branch office to the airport along with 600 employees. Operarted by Flughafen Düsseldorf Immobilien (FDI), a 100%
subsidiary of the airport company, Düsseldorf Airport City is now beginning its second phase of expansion to 230,000sqm based on the demand. According to Düsseldorf Airport CEO, Christoph Blume, from the start
there has been only one objective driving the project. “To establish Düsseldorf International as a renowned business location – this is what we were aiming for and what we, to a great deal, have already achieved. We want to be the ‘basis for business’,” he says. With some 100,000 companies based in the North Rhine-
Westphalia region and a catchment of 18 million people within 100km of the airport, it was felt that there was a good opportunity to make this vision a reality. Right from the planning stage, the decision was taken to separate the
industrial, blue collar ‘grey’ businesses to the east side of the airport, while creating a series of high quality office blocks to the west to entice white collar workers and high end companies and by extension charge higher rents. “All the companies settled in Düsseldorf Airport City have one thing in
common: they operate globally. And their customers are international. Let us take for example the medical specialists based in the business park, they have many patients from all over the world, especially from Arabian countries like the United Arab Emirates,” Blum adds. “We were able with our offer to prevail against numerous other
Düsseldorf International Airport. Put simply, it calls for airports to offer service levels equivalent to a major
city, constant investment to offer bigger and better facilities and ensure consistent and well thought out spatial planning. According to Morel, business parks at Milan, Schiphol and elsewhere are
becoming an increasingly lucrative part of Amsterdam Schiphol’s business. Last year, Schiphol Real Estate generated $114 million, representing
a 20% profit in its own activities and some 12% of the entire group’s profits for 2010. “If you invest in buildings you are looking at 8-10 years to regain your
investment then we begin to make a profit, we invest for the future, this compares with a typical developer who sells off the land within a year or two. “We look at a 10–15 year timeline, this is part of our non-aeronautical
strategy, if you take a 20,000sqm building and a tenant like DHL, you can generate 10% of its value in cash flow, which can then be invested in other airport facilities,” explains Morel. When a former army barracks on 23 hectares of land adjacent to
Düsseldorf Airport came on to the market in 2003, the airport operator snapped it up to form the basis of an ambitious project, a self-contained ‘airport city’. Expanding outwards in an arc from the airport terminal, the airport
city consists of a set of office blocks and show rooms with a combined lettable floor space of 150,000sqm.
locations and building concepts in the competition initiated by Siemens AG. The lease with Siemens AG was concluded before construction began,” says Robert Bambach, the project manager at Hochtief, who was tasked with leasing properties at Düsseldorf Airport City. While it is still essentially a business park, the development bears
many hallmarks of a city or town, green parks and trees, a road network with bus stops, parking and water features, a Maritim Hotel and conference facilities. It’s a five-minute walk to the terminal’s landside 110 bars, restaurants and shops. With a background as a city planner for a number of German
municipal governments, Blum has plenty of experience managing a project of this size and complexity. It is already producing an annual turnover of €20-30 million, Blum’s ultimate goal is to sell the entire site to investors and pension funds for a vast return. While there are a number of benefits associated with creating a
business park at an airport, such as the availability of undeveloped land and the lack of restriction associated with residential areas, there are some unique challenges. “There are indeed a few planning restrictions due to the proximity
of the airport. The buildings, for example, may not be higher than 25 metres as this could hinder the landing system. “Additionally, no technical installations are allowed on the roofs –
which have to be flat – as they could hinder radar. “Finally, only specific trees are allowed in the green areas of
Düsseldorf Airport City. Fruit trees, for example, may not be planted in order to avoid attracting birds to the area,” explains Blum. Most downtown property developers would probably be overjoyed if
their main obstacle to being granted planning permission for a project was making sure there was not a single fruit tree!
AIRPORT WORLD/FEBRUARY-MARCH 2011 AW 43
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