A large cinema, a shopping mall, a furniture store, office building, the Technical Town Hall - there were already many plans for the Honsell triangle in Ostend.

In view of the tough and complicated history, it cannot be taken for granted that this wasteland will actually be cultivated now.

When the Hamburg-based B&L group acquired the property 15 years ago, they wanted to build a shopping center.

For years there was a dispute about its size, the neighboring city of Offenbach even threatened with a lawsuit against the supposed competition with its own inner city.

Then everything turned out differently than expected: Now the first buildings are actually on the Honsell triangle: They belong to the second construction phase of the mixed-use Hafenpark district, for which the topping-out ceremony was celebrated on Wednesday.

Rainer Schulze

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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The new name refers to the Hafenpark, which is on the other side of Mayfarthstrasse.

Opposite it, 288 condominiums and a hotel of the Scandic brand are being built in two 60-meter-high skyscrapers and a block edge.

This construction phase should be finished in 2023, and half of the first 180 apartments have already been marketed.

They are offered in a price range between 9,500 and 19,000 euros, the penthouses at the top are priced even higher.

Around 70 percent of the apartments have so far been sold to owner-occupiers.

Whoever moves in upstairs can not only look at Christine Lagarde's desk in the ECB tower, so to speak.

It also has an unobstructed view of the skyline.

So that as many residents as possible can also enjoy this view, the architect Hadi Teherani, who is implementing the project in a joint venture with AS + P, decided to step down the Scandic Hotel in the western edge of the block from eight to five floors.

It is still too early to judge the architecture of the Hafenpark district, because the building shell is only just finished.

A hundred trees in the yard

A hundred trees are to be planted in the inner courtyard, and there is a green communal terrace on the roof. Anyone moving into one of the apartments will be informed of the port park in the appendix to the purchase agreement. This is not a friendly service, but for a legal reason. No buyer should then be able to plead that he was not familiar with the park. Because for a long time there was a struggle to get the noise protection under control. Amazingly, different rules apply to leisure noise than to trains on the nearby embankment. Ultimately, it was possible to provide soundproofing with structural measures. The balconies can be closed with glass walls if necessary.

The Scandic Hotel is scheduled to open in spring 2023.

The director is a native of Frankfurt: Heiko Kain comes from Höchst and is returning to his hometown for the new conference hotel.

The 505 beds correspond to the four-star standard, there is a 600 square meter ballroom and all kinds of other amenities.

When creating a Scandinavian design, a lot of emphasis should be placed on the relationship to nature.

Scandic also focuses on environmental protection when it comes to service for guests: Instead of mineral water, the operator wants to offer Frankfurt drinking water that is bottled.

And bicycles are available for guests to borrow free of charge.

Criticism of the hotel tower

With the second construction phase - in the first phase rental apartments were already being built on Honsellstrasse - the Hafenpark district is not yet completed. In the north on Hanauer Landstrasse, office buildings will be erected in a third section, the highest will be around 60 meters. This construction phase should start next year and be finished in 2025. Then the Honsell triangle will be history for good.

In the south, however, the hotel tower on top of the pier is still to be built. A 60 meter high hotel is to be built there, based on a design by Barkow Leibinger. Although there has been a lot of criticism of the compact appearance of the high-rise - if the height is low, a high building size was permitted - the B&L Group wants to implement the design as it was chosen in the architectural competition. The city had announced that it would be possible to talk about the height again as part of the new high-rise master plan. Because the master plan has been postponed again as a result of the local elections, B&L managing director Thorsten Testorp is out of the question to wait any longer: “The pace is too slow. We are guided by the existing development plan.“The skyscraper on the Molenkopf should also be ready in 2026.