NEWS

„Mach2“: Open­ing of the flag­ship project in Hamburg

The project devel­op­er Four Parx, based in Dreie­ich and spe­cialised in indus­tri­al space, cel­e­brat­ed the open­ing of the first two-storey indus­tri­al and logis­tics real estate in Ger­many, “Mach2”, togeth­er with the invest­ment and asset man­ag­er AEW and the gen­er­al con­trac­tor GSE on the 15th of Sep­tem­ber 2022. More than 250 guests were invit­ed to the live event in Ham­burg-Wil­helms­burg. “Mach2” was built in the imme­di­ate vicin­i­ty of the Port of Ham­burg and is con­sid­ered a flag­ship project in the field of indus­tri­al and logis­tics real estate.

“With the open­ing of ‘Mach2’, we at Four Parx are cel­e­brat­ing a major suc­cess. In coop­er­a­tion with our part­ners AEW and GSE as well as with author­i­ties in Ham­burg, we joint­ly pre­sent­ed a pio­neer­ing con­cept to solve the short­age of space in met­ro­pol­i­tan areas and urban cen­tres,” says Oliv­er Schmitt, Man­ag­ing Part­ner of the Four Parx Group. “Giv­en the chal­lenges that we had to face through­out the devel­op­ment, for exam­ple in the field of sta­t­ics or soil con­di­tions, as well as the com­plex approval process, we are pleased to suc­cess­ful­ly com­plete the project and would like to thank all par­ties involved for their coop­er­a­tion and support.”

Four Parx devel­oped the 123,000 m² prop­er­ty with­out pre-let­ting on the for­mer pro­duc­tion site of the bev­er­age man­u­fac­tur­er Refres­co. Access is pro­vid­ed on two lev­els through ground-lev­el gates, elec­tro-hydraulic dock lev­ellers and two heat­ed ramps for truck use of up to 45 t on the upper floor. The hall height is 10 m below the edge of the truss­es. The eco­log­i­cal build­ing con­cept aims for cer­ti­fi­ca­tion accord­ing to “BREEAM – Excel­lent”, which con­sid­ers the eco­log­i­cal qual­i­ty of e.g., mate­ri­als, water and energy.

“The open­ing of ‘Mach2’ as the first two-storey logis­tics real estate is anoth­er com­po­nent in posi­tion­ing and pro­fil­ing Ham­burg as a respon­si­ble and future-ori­ent­ed metrop­o­lis of inno­va­tion,” says Michael West­hage­mann, Sen­a­tor for Eco­nom­ics and Inno­va­tion. “The issues of sus­tain­abil­i­ty and effi­cien­cy of land in metrop­o­lis­es are becom­ing increas­ing­ly impor­tant. Ham­burg, as lead­ing logis­tics region in North­ern Europe, is there­fore the per­fect place to devel­op and estab­lish this new busi­ness model.” 

Dr. Rolf Strittmat­ter, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of Wirtschafts­förderung Ham­burg Invest, adds: “With the revi­tal­i­sa­tion of a com­plex brown­field site, Four Parx has suc­cess­ful­ly imple­ment­ed ‘Mach2’, a flag­ship project for mul­ti-storey indus­tri­al and logis­tics real estate that is unique in the Ger­man-speak­ing coun­tries. We are pleased to have sup­port­ed the imple­men­ta­tion of this project on behalf of the City of Ham­burg. The full let­ting already achieved shows that inno­v­a­tive, sus­tain­able and space-effi­cient solu­tions are being accept­ed by the mar­ket in the Ham­burg metrop­o­lis and are thus mak­ing a valu­able con­tri­bu­tion to the eco­nom­ic growth of the met­ro­pol­i­tan region.”

With this project, Four Parx and its part­ners broke new ground in many ways, as there had been no com­pa­ra­ble ref­er­ence projects before. In addi­tion to an elab­o­rate build­ing per­mit pro­ce­dure and plan­ning process, the devel­op­er encoun­tered numer­ous chal­lenges e.g., due to a large num­ber of war­fare mate­r­i­al dis­cov­er­ies. The chal­leng­ing soil con­di­tions near the har­bour required a spe­cial foun­da­tion with approx. 26,000 columns.

Dany Brod­hag, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of GSE Ger­many, com­ments on the project as fol­lows: “With­in three years, a vision­ary con­cept has become real­i­ty. In terms of plan­ning and con­struc­tion, we have entered a dimen­sion that rede­fines space effi­cien­cy. When the first artic­u­lat­ed lor­ry drove up the ramp, it was a very emo­tion­al moment for our entire team. We are proud that we were able to con­tribute to the suc­cess of this logis­tics real estate project, which is sig­nif­i­cant through­out Europe.”

In July 2022, Four Parx announced full let­ting of “Mach2” even before com­ple­tion of the build­ing. Air­bus, one of the world’s lead­ing aero­space com­pa­nies, was the first to lease the entire ground floor. At the new site, the group will map part of the busi­ness of its ful­ly owned sub­sidiary Satair as well as store spare parts and offer spe­cif­ic ser­vices in the future. On the upper floor, the fur­nish­ing com­pa­ny JYSK SE, the sys­tem and oper­a­tions IT provider Bech­tle Logis­tik und Ser­vice GmbH and the online food retail­er Pic­nic GmbH secured space.

“The devel­op­ment of ‘Mach2’ has become an out­stand­ing suc­cess­ful project. The demand for indus­tri­al and logis­tics space has been increas­ing for years, and new con­cepts to solve the lack of space are in demand, espe­cial­ly in the cities. ‘Mach’ shows how land devel­op­ment can also suc­ceed in eco­nom­ic metrop­o­lis­es to the ben­e­fit of users and the munic­i­pal­i­ty. We are proud to have accom­pa­nied this project through­out its devel­op­ment,” explains Thomas Poulis-Lein­berg­er, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor at AEW. 

In terms of archi­tec­ture, the prop­er­ty is unique as well: Despite its loca­tion in an indus­tri­al area, high demands were placed on the archi­tec­ture and façade design of the build­ing. For this pur­pose, Four Parx con­duct­ed an archi­tec­tur­al com­pe­ti­tion to achieve a high lev­el of envi­ron­men­tal com­pat­i­bil­i­ty. In 2020, the devel­op­er received the B24 Brown­field Award Spe­cial Prize 2020 for Inno­v­a­tive Concepts.

With the real­i­sa­tion of the two-storey logis­tics real estate, Four Parx is con­tin­u­ing seam­less­ly from its oth­er pio­neer­ing con­cepts and solu­tions in the Hanseat­ic city of Ham­burg. In 2019, for exam­ple, the project devel­op­er com­mis­sioned a fea­si­bil­i­ty study on under­ground sup­ply and dis­pos­al in Hamburg’s city cen­tre. The result: the under­ground trans­port solu­tion is tech­ni­cal­ly fea­si­ble as well as eco­nom­i­cal­ly oper­a­ble and can make a con­sid­er­able con­tri­bu­tion to reduc­ing CO2 emis­sions as well as the city’s traf­fic load. The con­cept envis­ages con­nect­ing a ware­house about five kilo­me­tres away with a dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­tre via a pipe sys­tem. In 2020, the Ham­burg Min­istry of Eco­nom­ics and Inno­va­tion pledged its sup­port in a Let­ter of Intent (LoI) to find suit­able land for the promis­ing project.

TO ARCHIV