There is a lot going on in the financial centre of Frankfurt. A number of banks, supervisory and regulatory authorities have announced plans to relocate in recent weeks and months, including Commerzbank, ING Germany, Frankfurter Sparkasse, the ECB banking supervisory authority and the insurance regulator EIOPA. The recent past has not been short of relocations, as the most prominent examples DekaBank, Citi and Oddo BHF illustrate. The new anti-money laundering authority AMLA has also moved into the Messeturm.
“A lot happens within a radius of 800 metres.”
The attractiveness of the banking district is beyond question, observes Michael Kubik, Head of Office Leasing at Canadian property service provider Avison Young in Germany. ‘The banks are loyal to Frankfurt city centre.’ This does not apply in every case, as the examples of ING and DWP Bank, which are moving to more remote locations, show. However, they do not change the fundamental finding. ‘A lot is happening within a radius of 800 metres,’ he says about the concentration process in the central areas.
Apart from that, ING is planning to relocate its German headquarters to Ostend, far away from the banking district, as it recently announced. In 2028, it plans to relocate its headquarters from Theodor-Heuss-Allee 2 at the trade fair centre to the 16-storey HPQ building in the Hafenpark Quartier, where it will rent 32,000 square metres of office space for its 3,000 employees in Frankfurt. DWP Bank, on the other hand, even intends to leave Frankfurt. In 2026, it will give up its current location in Wildunger Strasse in Bockenheim in favour of Eschborn in order to move into a renovated office building at Kölner Strasse 5.
Commerzbank concentrates on
Regardless of this, financial institutions in general are increasingly moving to the banking centre, as the number two in the financial centre is also proving. ‘Commerzbank wants to move employees from decentralised locations to the city centre,’ says Avison Young expert Kubik. Even if it is not yet clear how things will develop in view of Unicredit’s takeover bid, he assumes that Commerzbank will concentrate on two locations: the existing Commerzbank Tower headquarters and the Central Business Tower, which is to be built by 2028.
New accommodation in the Central Business Tower
In February, it signed a lease agreement with Helaba as developer and owner in the Central Business Tower, which is still under construction. From 2028 onwards, it will rent over 73,000 square metres of space on 52 floors for 15 years.
On request, the bank explained that it intends to optimise existing space and dispose of any that is no longer required. As part of the location strategy, both existing properties and new developments will be scrutinised on an ongoing basis. ‘This review is currently underway for the head office and will determine what our building portfolio in the Rhine-Main region will look like in the future,’ Commerzbank said. In February, it announced its intention to cut a total of 3,900 full-time positions by 2028, 3,300 of them in Germany, mostly in central and staff functions as well as operations. If the bank is taken over by Unicredit, the redundancies would certainly be significantly increased.
According to the Commerzbank spokeswoman, the service centre at 151-157 Mainzer Landstrasse and the Vitreum in Eschborn are currently still active locations in the Rhine-Main region, in addition to the head office. According to the bank, it currently employs 8,730 people in Frankfurt (headcount).
The Cielo office complex at 102 Theodor-Heuss-Allee and the Lateral Towers at Neue Börsenstrasse 1 have already been vacated.
The situation is gaining in importance, says Kubik’s colleague Christian Ströder,
Director Market Intelligence/Research at Avison Young. ‘The central locations – the banking district, city centre and Westend – together account for 20% of Frankfurt’s office stock of around 12 million square metres. But in the years 2022 to 2024, they accounted for 35% of the space in demand, and in the first quarter of 2025 it was even 46%.’ According to him, the jump is mainly due to the lettings of Commerzbank and the US law firm White & Case. The latter is moving into the Central Parx, right next door, as was announced in February.
More vacancies, hardly any prime space
On the one hand, the vacancy rate in Frankfurt is increasing, observes Ströder, on the other hand, there is a lack of high-quality space in prime locations, according to him. There is hardly any new supply for the time being. ‘In these central locations, not even 20,000 square metres of available, newly built or completely renovated space will come onto the market from the construction pipeline by the end of next year.’
Commerzbank alone is taking up almost four times as much space in the Central Business Tower.
Deka in the centre and outside
DekaBank is bundling its employees at two locations, one in the centre and one on the periphery: in October, the Wertpapierhaus der Sparkassen completed the relocation of its Group headquarters with 900 employees from Trianon in Mainzer Landstrasse to Tower 1 of the new Four high-rise complex a few hundred metres away. A new building at Lyoner Strasse 13 in Niederrad for up to 3,500 employees was already occupied in 2022. Deka has given up offices in Hamburger Allee, Skyper in Taunusanlage and Prisma in Niederrad in recent years.
From the wave to the stock exchange
Citigroup and Oddo BHF also recently completed more extensive relocations. At the beginning of the year, the German headquarters of the American bank was relocated from the Frankfurter Welle behind the Alte Oper to a new seven-storey building opposite the stock exchange on Börsenplatz. There is space for around 500 employees on 10,000 square metres.
Last year, Oddo BHF moved into 18,000 square metres in the former Dresdner Bank board building at Gallusanlage 8. It was previously located at Bockenheimer Landstrasse 10, where White & Case is now based.
Frankfurter Sparkasse moves to the Hauptwache
Frankfurter Sparkasse will be located right in the centre, so to speak, and is expected to open its new six-storey headquarters at Hauptwache 1 by the end of 2027. The floor space amounts to 10,000 square metres. Helaba’s retail subsidiary will have to give up its current domicile at Neue Mainzer Strasse 47-55 because it will be demolished as part of the Kulturmeile project to make way for a new theatre.
Asset manager Universal Investment, on the other hand, will remain outside the city centre: In February, it moved its headquarters from the IBC Tower in Theodor Heuss-Allee 70 at the trade fair centre to the new Timber Pioneer building with an area of around 8,500 square metres at Europa-Allee 92-96. 800 employees are affected.
ECB supervisors find new domicile right next door
Geographical changes are also evident among the supervisors. By the end of the year, ECB Banking Supervision, with its 1,670 employees, will move into the Gallileo high-rise building at Gallusanlage 7 in the railway station district, within sight of the current main location, the Eurotower on Willy-Brandt-Platz. The ECB supervisors located right next door in the Japan Centre are due to follow in 2028. The ECB is renting 38,000 square metres in the Gallileo.
Supervision hub in the exhibition tower
A supervisory hub is being created in the Messeturm, where not only the AMLA’s anti-money laundering experts will be based, but also 200 EIOPA insurance regulators. Their lease in the Westhafen Tower expires in mid-2028. AMLA plans to be fully operational at the beginning of 2028 with 430 employees as planned. Both authorities will use joint conference areas.
Bundesbank scattered throughout the city
The Deutsche Bundesbank is scattered across several locations, mainly in the city centre. While the Deutsche Bundesbank’s headquarters on Wilhelm Epstein-Strasse is being renovated, it has moved into temporary quarters in the Frankfurt Office Centre (FBC) on Mainzer Landstrasse. In addition, there is office space nearby in Trianon and Signaris, in the head office in Hesse and in Skyper, as well as in the Prime Tower in Niederrad.
The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) will remain the same for the time being. The green standard setter based at Opernplatz had originally announced its intention to relocate. This is no longer the case. There are no immediate plans to relocate with the 36 employees, explained a
spokesperson on enquiry.
Allianz Global Investors apparently on the lookout
Allianz Global Investors is apparently on the lookout for a new home. The current tenancy agreement at Triton in Bockenheimer Landstraße 42-44 in Westend is still valid for a few years, says a spokesperson. ‘Planning for the future has begun – but there are no concrete plans or a final decision at the moment.’
According to Avison Young, the tenant mix in the financial centre has recently changed. After the consultancy sector – lawyers and notaries, business and tax consultancy firms in particular – had been the biggest demand for space for some time, the structure has shifted back in favour of the financial sector. The strength of the financial centre can be seen in the increased number of employees and ‘in the quantity and importance of relevant institutions and authorities’.
According to Helaba, the number of bankers in the city has been growing for years and will continue to do so for the time being. ‘Within Germany, there is a trend towards concentration in the banking sector in Frankfurt, which is likely to continue for the time being,’ says Ulrike Bischoff, financial centre expert at the Landesbank.
‘This concentration, which has been increasing for years, is also favoured by the fact that Frankfurt, with its corporate headquarters, is only affected to a limited extent by branch closures in Germany.’
In the third quarter of 2024, there were 71,800 employees subject to social insurance contributions. An increase to 73,500 is expected by the end of 2025, after which a decline is likely to follow. This would bring the sector’s personnel development in line with the nationwide trend, which has been pointing downwards for years and decades. ‘In view of demographic developments, we can assume that staff expansion will tend to slow down in the coming years,’ explains Bischoff with regard to developments in Frankfurt. According to her, restructuring measures in the German banking sector are also likely to have an impact.
Source (German): Im Bankenviertel werden die Kräfte gebündelt | Börsen-Zeitung
Secondary publication rights obtained by Börsen-Zeitung
