Construction work is already well under way on three of the construction areas for the new FRANKY residential quarter. The foundation stone has now been laid for construction area WA-4, which runs along Kleyerstraße between Johanna-Zittel-Straße and Meta-Gadesmann-Straße. A further 245 housing units will be built here, offering a total of 17,300 m² of residences, with 63 apartments being earmarked as subsidized housing.

The new rental flats are ideal for members of all generations and consist of different types: They range from 25 m² micro-flats to five-room apartments with an average of 133 m². Moreover, the sub-project also includes a kindergarten for 66 children in four parallel groups, a neighbourhood plaza with restaurants, and 80 parking spaces in the single-storey underground car park.

The State of Hessen is contributing 35.4 million Euros to financing the construction of FRANKY, specifically for the realization of a total of 193 council flats in construction areas WA-4 to WA-7. Of the sum, 25.3 million Euros are construction loans and 10.1 million Euros financing grants. The loans and grants are disbursed through WIBank on behalf of the state. The city council is providing some 12.6 million Euros through Subsidy Track 1.

On 23 June, aam2core, Instone, Bayerische Versorgungskammer and Universal Investment invited guests to the groundbreaking ceremony. Among them were Tarek Al-Wazir, Hessen Minister of Economics, Transportation and Housing, and Mike Josef, Lord Mayor of Frankfurt.

“FRANKY proves that it is definitely possible to create appealing and affordable housing in prime Frankfurt locations,” commented Al-Wazir. He also emphasized that the project’s innovative heating concept helps further reduce dependence on fossil fuels. As of last year, larger municipalities in Hessen are obliged to undertake municipal heating planning, and in this context the minister said: “In the past, little was done in this regard. Projects like FRANKY are good examples of what can be achieved.”

Lord Mayor Josef, who has accompanied the project from the outset, originally as Head of the Frankfurt Municipal Planning Dept., spoke of the “important contribution being made to alleviate the housing shortage in our city”. It is by no means an easy matter, he continued, to create a completely new quarter in such a central location in Frankfurt consisting exclusively of rental flats for about 3,000 tenants. The lord mayor is convinced that “we will only be able to ease the situation in the housing market by maintaining existing and building new affordable housing.”