Source: AFP
German industrial giant Siemens on Tuesday launched a 4.5 billion euro ($4.8 billion) urban development project in the Berlin area known as Siemensstadt, where the company enjoyed its pre-war heyday.
Siemensstadt Square’s “future area” will include new living spaces for up to 7,000 people and create an additional 20,000 jobs at the site, where Siemens still manufactures today, the company said.
Siemensstadt Square “aims to connect the worlds of work and research, housing and living in a new way — worlds that were already brought together in the historic Siemensstadt,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said at the launch of the project.
The development embodies “the future of Berlin and German industry,” he said.
The 76-hectare site, due for completion by 2035, will include homes, factories and research centres, as well as offices, shops and education, sports and leisure facilities.
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The project is a way of “reconciling the uses” and showing that “industrial activity still has a place in our cities,” said Roland Busch, CEO of Siemens.
Siemens built a series of factories on the outskirts of Berlin in the early 20th century, employing thousands of workers to produce cables, motors and electric pumps.
Housing for workers soon followed and the area became known as Siemensstadt (Siemens town) from 1914, a name it still bears today.
The area prospered until the 1930s but the devastation of World War II, the division of the city and then the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 put a brake on further development.
With around 380,000 employees, Siemens has refocused its activities in recent years on digital technology, moving away from the production of heavy industrial equipment.
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In another sign of changing times, the group will not build housing for its employees in the new development as it did a century ago.
Instead, the 2,500 homes planned will be built by developers.
However, Siemens is still billing the development as a return to its Berlin roots, stressing that the company’s €750m contribution to the project is its “largest single investment in Berlin”.
Source: AFP