This year’s excursion abroad of the Real Estate Management Study Programs took us to the German capital from April 13 to 15, 2023: Berlin!
The group comprised 23 people and consisted of 20 students from our Bachelor’s program in Real Estate and our Master’s program in Real Estate Management, Head of Study Programs Klemens Braunisch, Academic Expert & Lecturer Carmen Dilch and Jenni Wenkel, Chairwoman of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) in Austria and Member of the Board and CIO of Union Investment Real Estate Austria. In addition to relevant excursions and lectures at the partner university Fresenius, the program included networking.
The official start of the Real Estate Field Trip was the welcome on site by the real estate service provider CBRE on the 26th floor of the 118m high Upper West skyscraper with a panoramic view of the city. In this context, we received an overview of the Berlin office real estate market in a presentation by CBRE as well as a tour of the excellent New Work concept of CBRE’s office space.
After these initial insights into the local real estate market, we moved on to a live tour of the WeWork concept, the world’s largest coworking space provider.
The crowning finale of the first day was the excursion to DIEAG’s Behrens-Ufer project in Berlin. This is the construction of a huge innovative and sustainable commercial district on a 10-hectare former industrial site. The mix of historic and new buildings offers a total of 234,000 m2 of rental space for traders. Afterwards, there was an opportunity to network with those involved in the project over a buffet of Berlin specialities.
The first item on the agenda on Friday was a discussion about the differences and similarities between the Viennese and Berlin residential real estate markets with the Dean of Studies at Fresenius University of Applied Sciences, Dr. Bernd Hoepfner, and students on their inner-city campus.
This was followed by a joint tour of the construction site of the high-rise building at Europaplatz, a modern, around 84-metre-high Class A office tower by CA Immo, which is part of Europacity, the urban development area in Berlin Mitte (for decades a “no man’s land” between East and West and characterized by the Berlin Wall, container railway station and warehouses). After a joint networking lunch in the historic building of the Hamburger Bahnhof restaurant in Berlin, the next exciting excursion already followed to the construction site of the new Fürst city quarter. It is one of the largest and also most elaborate construction projects being implemented in Berlin’s City West. The former Kudamm-Karree is being transformed by the developer Cells into an ensemble with around 183,000 m2 of gross floor space. Around 47,000 m2 of floor space will be offices, 12,000 m2 retail. In addition, there will be gastronomy, a hotel, a museum and a theatre.
The interesting and impressive excursion day ended with a joint cocktail and dinner at the Hard Rock Café Berlin.
This year’s Real Estate Field Trip concluded with a two-hour architectural guided tour of the highlights of the Mediaspree urban development area with Berlin architect Alexander Mendelsohn from Gewers Pudewill and a final lunch together.
We would like to thank our sponsors of this year’s foreign excursion: CBRE AUSTRIA and IMMOUNITED.