Gröner Group AG: Why has Christoph Gröner not been building in Berlin for two years?

Gröner Group AG: Why has Christoph Gröner not been building in Berlin for two years?

Christoph Gröner, as one of the most prominent builders in Germany, has not built in the capital for two years. Although Gröner expresses his political orientation as a convinced social democrat, he supported the Berlin CDU in 2020 with a donation of 820,000 euros. In a future forum of his Gröner Group in Berlin, he spoke about the challenges of ecological building in the face of severely increased construction costs.

The costs for the construction of apartments in various German cities show a clear gradient. In Berlin, the property prices from 2010 until today have almost tenfold, which makes it difficult to realize affordable living space. Gröner emphasizes that the actual problem is not the construction costs, but the exorbitant property prices that have given the narrow property to speculative interests.

Gröner sees the low purchasing power of Berliners as the main reason that his company has largely withdrawn from the Berlin construction events since 2022. The exponentially increased property prices make new construction projects economically unprofitable. He considers Berlin purchasing power to be inadequate compared to cities such as Cologne, Leipzig and Stuttgart, which has a negative impact on property prices in the capital.

The lack of political will and ideological grave battles sees GRÖNER as an obstacle to the creation of affordable living space. He advocates a pragmatic approach in which politics puts ideological discussions aside and, together with various parties, develops a master plan for housing construction. Gröner emphasizes the need to quickly and efficiently build more apartments in order to counteract the growing lack of housing and not give any space.