Basel: Business associations against apartments on Lysbüchel site

In 2013, the canton bought part of the 170,000 square meter Lysbüchel site near the Alsace border from Coop with the aim of a future mixed use. The co-owner SBB is also planning apartments. Business associations, on the other hand, are calling for the site to be retained as an economic area. The Basel-Stadt Trade Association (GVBS) and the Basel Chamber of Commerce have now presented their ideas for the future of the Lysbüchel site under the title "Densifying instead of displacing".

The site is located in the middle of a belt of factories that stretches from the slaughterhouse to the Novartis campus and across the Rhine. The GVBS and the Chamber of Commerce believe that residential use, as planned by the canton and SBB, would have a divisive effect in this industrial belt and lead to the displacement of companies in the medium term. In the view of the associations, however, there is great potential for densification: the area offers space for new factory buildings with ground-level access. The associations propose the construction of large commercial buildings that can accommodate the existing businesses and new companies. In addition, cultural use - for example by clubs or bars - would be conceivable.

However, the owners of the site have other plans - they want to build apartments. The largest landowner is SBB with almost 70,000 square meters and wants to build a commercial building on the northern corner as well as apartments. Little is known about the plans of the canton, which holds 34,000 square meters in the industrial zone: The canton is considering an elementary school on the site and the existing parking garage is to make way for a residential development. The Habitat Foundation, which owns around 12,000 square meters in zone 5a, wants to expand its existing residential buildings. (ah)