The location is ideal: just a few minutes’ walk along Viehofer Straße connects Essen’s modern university district with its main shopping streets, Limbecker Straße and Kettwiger Straße. Yet instead of popular fashion labels and a diverse dining scene, discount shops and vacant units currently define the street.

That could change now. Brockhoff sold the property of long-established business Leuchten Kaiser to a long-standing business partner and worked with the buyer and a specialist architecture firm to develop a new positioning for the site. The former lighting shop is set to become a modern apartment building with 88 furnished units. It will be ideally suited to students, lecturers, young managers and single residents of Essen seeking proximity to the city centre and university.

Brockhoff believes the successful redevelopment of Leuchten Kaiser will have a positive ripple effect along the entire street and is committed to supporting the process proactively. “We are in discussions with other owners and developing visions for the future of their properties. Our network includes numerous buyers ready to invest who are interested in acquiring and repositioning properties on Viehofer Straße,” says Eckhard Brockhoff.

The Brockhoff team has already shown how an entire street can be successfully transformed through its work on Huyssenallee. Just over 15 years ago, vacant properties dominated the area between Essen’s central station and the lively Rüttenscheid neighbourhood. Today, the former grand boulevard has been revitalised with a balanced mix of homes, offices and restaurants.

“Mixed use is a successful formula that can work on Viehofer Straße, too. It no longer works as a purely fashion-focused street, and that will not change in the future. New residents, on the other hand, bring spending power. They need to shop and will make use of what their immediate neighbourhood has to offer,” says Eckhard Brockhoff.