BREMEN, Germany—Union Investment has won the bidding for one of the most significant real estate transactions in Bremen.
The Hamburg-based investment manager is acquiring the landmark Weser Tower building, designed by Helmut Jahn, for an unspecified price. The vendor is the developer, Siedentopf, who was advised by Jones Lang LaSalle.
The 22-story office tower, completed in 2010, is used solely by EWE AG, Germany's fifth largest energy provider. The company has around 17 years left on its lease. At about 270 feet (82 meters) Weser Tower offers 17,912 square meters of rental space and is the tallest office building in the city and wider region. It dominates the skyline of the Überseestadt district. Architect Helmut Jahn chose an all-glass façade for the building, which combines a striking appearance with maximum transparency.
“The combination of a high quality property, its excellent location and the fact that it is fully let to a financially sound municipal company made the decision to enter the Bremen office market easy,” said Christoph Schumacher, a member of the management team at Union Investment Institutional Property. “With its traditionally low vacancy rate, Bremen is an attractive alternative to Germany's mainstream real estate markets.”
Union Investment, the fund manager within the cooperative banking network (Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken), intends to increase its proportion of property acquisitions in German mid-sized cities. The investment focus is on office and commercial properties worth between EUR 15 and 50 million. Weser Tower joins the portfolio of open-ended real estate fund UniInstitutional European Real Estate, which is targeted at institutional investors.
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