A new neighbour for the Meander Building: GIZ continuing to invest in its offices in Bonn

18.12.2015 – GIZ moved into the ‘Meander Building’ located at Friedrich-Ebert-Allee 36 in June 2015 and is already planning to construct a new 30,000 m2 six-storey office complex next door with capacity for some 850 staff members.

Notarisation of the purchase agreement took place on 17 December in the ‘Meander Building’. There to witness the event was Bonn’s Mayor, Ashok-Alexander Sridharan. With this purchase, GIZ is set to invest around EUR 158 million in a second office building.

‘Bonn is a key location for GIZ's international cooperation activities and it is important to us that we strengthen it,’ said Tanja Gönner, who explained that this decision was prompted not only by the close proximity to GIZ's main commissioning party, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), but also by the fact that it would facilitate cooperation with the international institutions based here. At the same time, GIZ is helping to strengthen Bonn's international profile as Germany's United Nations city.

For Ashok-Alexander Sridharan, GIZ's ongoing commitment to Bonn is good news. ‘Bonn is known everywhere in the world – on the one hand because of GIZ and on the other because of its sustainability agenda. It is important for the many international organisations based here that GIZ has an on-site presence in Bonn.’

Of course, the new building will also benefit GIZ staff currently spread across three different sites in the city, as it will form a campus together with the Meander Building where all staff will work side by side.

The new building is to be constructed in keeping with high ecological standards and, in terms of its design and fittings, will be fully compliant with the demands of a modern-day administration, explains GIZ Managing Director Hans-Joachim Preuß. A low environmental burden, the use of renewable energies and a functional architecture show that GIZ intends to create a sustainable working environment for its staff.