ABG Real Estate Group and HanseMerkur Grundvermögen acquire historic property on Frankfurt’s Rossmarkt

  • Deutsche Bank has been using the property as its main branch office in Frankfurt for over 90 years; For several years, it was also used as the bank’s headquarters
  • Listed building with a striking façade, in prime location between banking district and Hauptwache

Frankfurt/Main, 24 February 2022 – ABG Real Estate Group has acquired a historic property on Frankfurt’s Rossmarkt together with its joint venture partner HanseMerkur Grundvermögen. The listed building with its striking façade is situated in a prime location between the banking district and the historic Hauptwache building. The property is let to Deutsche Bank, which has been using it as its main branch office in Frankfurt for over 90 years; For several years, Deutsche Bank also used the property as the bank's headquarters. The total investment volume is in the lower triple-digit million-euro range. The seller is a PGIM Real Estate fund.

ABG Real Estate Group, which is active in all of Germany's top cities, has thus acquired its second outstanding property in Frankfurt's banking district together with HanseMerkur Grundvermögen: In late summer 2020, the partners had already purchased the Frankfurt landmark Oddo BHF-Tower.

The now acquired building is located directly on Frankfurt’s Rossmarkt and thus on one of the best-known addresses in the city of Frankfurt. Rossmarkt offers direct access to Goetheplatz and An der Hauptwache, both equally prominent squares, and is ideally connected in terms of transport. The renowned shopping streets Goethestraße and Zeil are also nearby. The property comprises lettable space of approximately 13,600 sqm on six storeys above ground. The façade was designed using elements of the Late Baroque and early Classicism periods, creating a highly attractive and unique building in Frankfurt. Situated at the interface of the banking district, the city centre and the "FOUR" project that is being developed, the property also has exciting development potential and great attractiveness for various uses.

Ulrich Höller, Managing Partner at ABG Real Estate Group, said: “ABG Real Estate Group has purchased a unique property on Frankfurt’s Rossmarkt, which stands out not only due to its special architecture in a prime location, but also because of its long history and significant potential.”

ABG was supported in executing the transaction by GSK Stockmann (legal advice), Drees & Sommer (technical due diligence) and ALR Treuhand GmbH (tax advice). The financing is supported by a consortium of Taunus Sparkasse and Frankfurter Volksbank e.G.

Background information about the cultural monument on Rossmarkt The striking property on Rossmarkt was built for Disconto-Gesellschaft in 1904, one of the largest German banking companies at the time, which merged with Deutsche Bank at the end of the 1920s. At the time of its construction, the building – designed in Louis XVI style – was the largest property on Rossmarkt. The building combines Late Baroque and early Classicism elements, with a façade clad in pale Silesian and Franconian sandstone and richly decorated formal rooms. When designing the stairwell, the architects – Eugen Rückgauer and Hermann Ritter – drew their inspiration from the Wurzburg Residence. Whilst Rückgauer is also known as the architect of Kunstpalast Dusseldorf, today’s Ehrenhof, Hermann Ritter was responsible for designing the representative buildings of the Baghdad Railway, notably Istanbul’s Haydarpaşa Terminal. Frankfurt-based contractor Philipp Holzmann, who was also part of the Baghdad Railway project, built the property on Rossmarkt which was later extended and modified numerous times to stand as it is today. During the war, in 1944, the building was destroyed. Reconstruction took place a few years later, leading to changes in the inner structure and parts of the façade. Today the Rossmarkt property is a protected cultural monument of the city of Frankfurt. Its ‘Frankfurter Saal’, home to Management Board meetings, with wooden panelling on the walls, and the ‘Präsidentenzimmer’, from which former Deutsche Bank Chairman Herman Josef Abs managed the financial institution, bear unique testimony to German banking history. The property is one of the few remaining classical-style buildings in Frankfurt’s city centre.
 

PRESS CONTACT

Jochen Goetzelmann & Jorge Person
Targa Communications

Junghofstraße 16
60311 Frankfurt

+49 69 153 24 21-0
abg[at]targacom.de

 

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