Commercial space: leveraging potential in the Ruhr region

Land management with municipalities

Coordinated commercial land management (GFM) is central to the strategic development of land in the Ruhr region. Even after the end of the funding project, the Business Metropole Ruhr supports the development of commercial areas with municipal partners.

Analyses of the GFM (V) funding project show these developments:

Commercial and industrial sites that are free of restrictions and marketable are becoming scarcer.
Available sites are intensively marketed in the Ruhr region and are quickly taken up.
There is an increasing proportion of brownfield sites with barriers to mobilization.

Raising land potential in the Metropole Ruhr

In a previous project phase (IV), a clear mission was formulated for the region:

We support municipalities in removing restrictions on use and develop instruments for mobilizing commercial-industrial areas with use restrictions.

Together with the municipalities and districts, additional commercially usable land potential was mobilized in the project: especially in existing areas.

Cities, districts as well as regional actors of the Ruhr Metropolis worked with the Business Metropole Ruhr on the implementation of the project over a period of three years. The partner is the Regional Association Ruhr as the responsible body for regional planning and development.

Four building blocks for modern land development

In Phase V, there was practice-oriented dialogue to support municipalities in land mobilization. The following measures were on the agenda for this:

"In view of the high utilization of commercial land potential by many municipalities in the Ruhr region, there is an opportunity to make commercial land available to companies at attractive locations with good infrastructural connections. Encouraging the use of brownfield sites is an economic and ecological necessity."

Mona Neubaur Minister for Economy, Industry, Climate Protection and Energy