Zurich Group buys "Berliner Tor Center" in Hamburg
Zurich Group Germany purchased the "Berliner Tor Center" (BTC) in Hamburg on September 1, 2015. The seller of the approximately 80,000 square meter office complex is a fund managed by Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing, which had acquired the building in 2006 as part of the so-called "XXL Portfolio".
Bilfinger Real Estate, which has been managing the BTC as asset manager since 2007, and JLL supported the deal. The selling fund was advised on the transaction by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, the Zurich Group as buyer by Luther Rechtsanwälte. The parties agreed not to disclose the purchase price. According to market observers, it is said to have been well over 200 million euros.
The BTC is located in the Alster Business District in Hamburg's St. Georg district and was built between 2003 and 2005 according to plans by architect Jan Störmer. The complex, which dominates the cityscape, comprises three 23-story, 90-meter-high building sections. In total, the BTC has seven building sections and 950 underground and outdoor parking spaces.
The space in the BTC is 88 percent leased, including large companies such as Siemens (17,000 square meters), IBM (9,000 square meters), Carat Germany (6,500 square meters) as well as Colgate Palmolive and Deutsche Bahn.
Bilfinger Real Estate currently manages 600 office, retail and residential properties in Switzerland and Germany with around 415,000 square meters of space for the Zurich Group. (mr)
