Living at the edge of Berlin

More than just another housing development: The “PrinzenQuartier” in Königs Wusterhausen

Living on the green edge of Berlin

In Königs Wusterhausen in the Dahme-Spree district, southeast of the German capital, investor and project developer HBB will complete its “PrinzenQuartier” in fall 2021. In a construction period of approx. 36 months, a complex residential quarter embedded in greenery has been created with 131 residential units. The modernly designed terraced, semi-detached and townhouses have all already been sold. Living on the outskirts of the big city: it’s the trend.

Königs Wusterhausen – With a population of around 36,600, Königs Wusterhausen is the largest town in the Dahme-Spreewald district. Forests, lakes and sights such as its castle characterize this small town in the Mark Brandenburg region, which is steeped in history. Thus, it offers the people who live here a great and varied recreational value. With its proximity and convenient transport links to the metropolis of Berlin, the city – located between the Tesla mega-factory currently under construction and the now completed new Willy Brandt Capital Airport – is at the same time in a region with an increasingly strong infrastructure. Living space, work, culture and a secure local supply: The residents of Königs Wusterhausen can thus take advantage of all the benefits of the big city at any time and at the same time live a life in the countryside at its gates.

Surprised by the sales success

Oliver Radünz, Managing Director of HBB Hanseatische Betreuungs- und Beteiligungsgesellschaft, believes that this awareness, coupled with the increasingly scarce supply of residential space in Berlin, is one of the reasons,
that all residential units of the new PrinzenQuartier were sold in such an unexpected record pace. “We were a little surprised ourselves by our sales success. Neither the completion date of the airport, which had not been fixed for a long time
of the airport nor the Corona crisis slowed our sales efforts. “We had expected sales to decline during the lockdown periods – but the opposite was true,” the HBB CEO notes in retrospect.

Corona certainly reinforced people’s decision to live their lives outside the city, Radünz says. The pandemic, he says, has led to “a home of one’s own – and a small garden – as well as the possibility of a home office becoming much more important, even among people who have a great affinity for city life.” The HBB customer structure for the new residential quarter reflects this: it consists not only of young families at the start of their working lives, but also “of a whole range of successful, well-educated high-income earners in the middle of their working lives who – here the pandemic has certainly played a role that should not be underestimated – prefer a terraced house with a garden to an attractive city apartment.”

The new quarter

The PrinzenQuartier is located in the west of Königs Wusterhausen. The cityscape here is characterized by small apartment buildings, duplexes and row houses with gardens. In addition to educational institutions, various retailers, a supermarket, other service providers and doctors of various specialties are within walking distance. The new PrinzenQuartier with a total of 64 terraced houses, 30 semi-detached houses and 37 townhouses, built on a total area of around 37,000 square meters, fits into this quarter. The terraced houses and semi-detached houses have been built in classical architecture with gable roofs, solid solid construction and light-colored plaster facades. The townhouses (two full stories with a recessed staggered floor) are characterized by modern architecture with flat roofs and exclusive roof terraces. HBB has invested a total of around 52 million euros in the ensemble.

The PrinzenQuartier project is a stringent continuation of HBB’s general orientation in the residential construction sector, explains Oliver Radünz. Already 25 years ago, the Hamburg-based company had planned and built affordable terraced houses for young families. “In residential construction, we are still interested in realizing condominiums in the Berlin urban area, but we want to expand the development of entire residential quarters and the realization of larger terraced house and semi-detached house quarters,” he outlines the future direction. “In addition to the Berlin environs, the areas around our home base of Hamburg also come into question here – in other words, some of the areas between the Baltic Sea and the Elbe, but certainly also the cities in and around Frankfurt and around Munich, which are very familiar to us from care and retail developments.”

With the keywords “care” and “retail”, the HBB managing director mentions two special features that distinguish HBB as an investor. In addition to residential construction, the company has also been involved in the construction of nursing homes for the elderly in the city center and sophisticated retail properties over the past 25 years. “Here we have acquired considerable know-how,” says Radünz.

Advantage: know-how in inclusive and senior-friendly construction

In terms of sustainability and usability of living space for people in various life situations, whether old or young, with or without impairments, the know-how from the area of senior citizens’ real estate also benefits HBB customers in “normal” residential construction; this is also the case in the new PrinzenQuartier: As an investor in the senior citizens’ area with 43 senior citizens’ nursing homes under ownership, the topic of sustainability, equity for the elderly and inclusion has “become second nature to his team and the HBB planners,” explains Radünz. However, he adds, a distinction must be made: While numerous HBB condominiums are always built to be suitable for the elderly – “without these apartments and the bathrooms giving the impression of being suitable for the elderly as a result” – this possibility exists only to a limited extent in the area of terraced houses and semi-detached houses due to the stairs that are inevitably unavoidable here. “But even there, we regularly install showers that are flush with the floor and often washbasins that can be moved underneath. However, as with our senior care homes, we also attach considerable importance to good architecture and a snappy design here,” says Radünz. The claim here is that functional aids should not be visually perceptible as such. “In this respect, we are pleased when we receive positive feedback from younger buyers for a successful and open bathroom design – which meets high design standards, appears spacious without wasting space – but is nevertheless also – unnoticeably – suitable for the elderly.”

Further information:

Herr Oliver Radünz
Tel.: +49 (0) 40 600 907- 200
E-Mail: raduenz@hbb.de