We want to use the momentum: This is how the Mayor of Mainz, Michael Ebling (SPD), sums up the strategy of the Rhineland-Palatinate state capital, which would like to develop into an internationally renowned biotechnology location over the next ten to twelve years.

The right place for the desired future campus, where all the players involved in the ambitious project could network and meet, is believed to have already been found.

Several fields on the outskirts of the city, between the Europakreisel, the football stadium and the university campus, have been identified as potential growth zones.

Markus Schug

Correspondent Rhein-Main-Süd.

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It is here that new companies and research institutes want to settle, which in one way or another deal with the major issues of biotechnology and life science.

For the time being, up to 18 hectares of space would be available between the Bretzenheim and Gonsenheim districts, i.e. within sight of Saarstrasse.

According to a needs analysis presented a few days ago by the consulting firm Deloitte, development should begin before the end of this year.

Up to 5000 new jobs

In the long term, another 50 hectares could possibly be gained at this location.

However, the property owners, especially Mainz farmers, would then have to agree to this request.

However, this did not work out as hoped when the football stadium was built more than ten years ago in the middle of the fields in a cold air corridor that is important for the city center and therefore had to be buried a little bit in the ground.

In any case, the resistance of the owners at the time was unexpectedly strong.

The city is in no doubt that the farmland not far from the university, which also serves as a year-round recreational area for walkers, is the ideal location for the planned biotechnology campus.

Research institutes, pharmaceutical companies and start-ups could be located there by 2035, which at best should give the municipality up to 5,000 new, future-proof jobs and the associated tax revenue.

At the beginning of the year, probably not least in the interests of the extremely successful Mainz-based vaccine manufacturer Biontech SE, the applicable trade tax rate for all companies and businesses was reduced from 440 to 310 points.

After all, one wants to prevent the most important trade tax payer, who has probably transferred more than one billion euros to the city treasury since 2020, from moving away.

Biontech is also expanding 

Biontech itself is currently in the process of expanding at its An der Goldgrube site and converting the neighboring Generalfeldzeugmeisterkaserne, which is directly adjacent to the company's headquarters, into its own campus for research and development.

At least part of the twelve-hectare site is to remain reserved for the construction of apartments that are also urgently needed in Mainz, as planned.

Notwithstanding this, the authors advise the municipality to focus on the development and establishment of "a central biotechnology location".

This should be realized as close as possible to the university.

With companies such as Biontech and Ganymed, but also with the university medicine and Tron, a biopharmaceutical research institute for translational oncology, Mainz already has successful, powerful and innovative companies, Ebling said when presenting the study: "It is the clear goal of the city to help make life and work in Mainz even better.” In the project to “establish an internationally recognized and constantly growing biotechnology cluster”, the state is known to be on its side.

According to the city management, the first development work on the areas previously used for agriculture can and should begin in the next few weeks.

"The local attractiveness of the biotechnology location is noticeable, the radiance can be experienced globally thanks to the success of the biotech companies," said project manager Susanne Uhlmann from Deloitte, describing a current favorable situation for Mainz.

It is important to seize the moment.

Almost as if they had guessed it, other planners - namely the project developers of J. Molitor Immobilien GmbH, GL Kayser Immobilien GmbH and IGM Immobiliengesellschaft Mainz mbH - are even further along.

Construction of a first representative laboratory and office building within sight of the university is possible before the end of the year .

The three-storey building should allow a flexible room layout, offer state-of-the-art technical equipment and have a sustainable energy concept: with geothermal energy, photovoltaics on the roof and on the outer walls, a solar carport,