Construction Site Subsidence Causes Fear and Disruptions for Neighboring Tenants and Buildings at Markgrafendamm.

On the construction site between Ostkreuz and Elsenbrücke, the machines are standing still. To be on the safe side, no further work may be carried out for the time being. Only on the outside wall of the building at Markgrafendamm 6 are industrial climbers hanging up a large poster this week. A food stamp is advertised with the words »If it has to be quick«. When asked about the construction site next door, the house community also has the impression that things should be done quickly and that the work was not done properly. “There are deep cracks everywhere in the apartment, the sand is trickling on my furniture and pieces of the ceiling rumble down at night,” reports a tenant who doesn’t want to read her name in the newspaper.

Since the civil engineering work for a private student residence at Markgrafendamm 7-10 has been underway, there has been so-called subsidence in the neighboring buildings on both sides of the construction site. The buildings go down. This becomes visible in the cracks in the outer walls and in the apartments of both houses. One of the affected neighboring buildings at Markgrafendamm 10 belongs to the client himself. The subsidence in the neighboring building at house number 6 is so severe that the doors and windows of numerous tenants can no longer be closed. The building inspector pulled the ripcord last Thursday. A complete halt to construction work was ordered.

The tenants are afraid. They feel left alone by property management, builders and the district. They are assured that the stability of the building is not endangered. But can they believe it? She’s already thought about packing a bag for emergencies, says the tenant. In case it has to be quick. Some of the statements made by the numerous people who have looked at the condition of the house also contribute to the fear. As long as her hand doesn’t fit through the crack, she has nothing to fear, she’s been told, says the tenant from Markgrafendamm 6.

17 square meters for 994 euros

Even if there is no danger, the tenant assumes that she will have to live with the cracks in the ceilings and walls for a long time. The builder has meanwhile started repairs in the apartments so that the tenants can close their doors and windows again. But the property management also writes to the tenants: “For the time being, they are staying away from a general repair of the cracks, since it must be assumed that the damage will occur again during the further work.” The client of the student residence, Quarterback, also confirms: “In the As a rule, this takes place after completion of the shell construction, since only then the majority of possible damage in neighboring buildings becomes apparent.«

Quarterback plans to build 350 micro-apartments on the property. The complex is part of the international brand The Fizz. There is already a property of the same name in Kreuzberg on Köpenicker Strasse. A single studio with the designated size of 17 to 25 square meters can be rented here from 994 euros. The real estate group Vonovia also holds a minority stake in the project developer Quarterback.

The project is a thorn in the side of the neighborhood. The Fizz is one of the numerous real estate projects that have upgraded the area not far from the Rummelsburg Bay. An initiative is calling for a demonstration at the excavation pit on Saturday. The neighborhood initiative demands answers to the question of what exactly happens to the houses as a result of the construction work. Tenants speak of an »unprofessional construction site« and »bungling work«.

Expert gives the all-clear

Quarterback denies that. There have been extensive preliminary investigations, security measures and reports. “However, when building in a Gründerzeit environment, unknown factors must always be assumed, and minor structural impairments of Gründerzeit houses on neighboring properties are a frequent occurrence in the construction process,” says the company.

An employee of the engineering office, which has been monitoring the construction site as an independent auditor since the summer of last year, and who also ordered the construction work to stop, gave the all-clear. “The construction company didn’t make any major mistakes, it’s just bad ground,” he says. The engineer takes his time to explain everything. Beginning with the Warsaw-Berlin glacial valley up to the development pressure in today’s Berlin, which only leaves areas where no one would have built before. Settlements were expected. The fact that they are now larger than expected does not mean any danger to life or limb.

He also explains how to proceed. A water-cement mixture had to be injected into the ground under the house using high-pressure injection lances. Comparable perhaps with the work that is currently being carried out on Alexanderplatz after the subway tunnel there collapsed in the course of the construction of a high-rise building. “The guys there just do it on a different scale,” he explains. At Alexanderplatz there are measuring devices that monitor everything automatically. Here on Markgrafendamm that is his job.

The 20th monitoring report is now available to the construction supervision. The district office confirms that the test engineer’s requirements are listed there. Only when everything is safe and there is an emergency timetable will the construction site be released again, says the engineer. However, he emphasizes that the cooperation with builders, construction company and district is going the way you want it to.

Tree gone, window bricked up and living space misused?

It is not the first stop of the construction work. Shortly before Christmas, the work was stopped due to cracks in the house at Markgrafendamm 6. Already at the beginning of December because cracks formed in the residential building at Markgrafendamm 10. There, on the other side of the construction site, measures have already been taken to stabilize the house. She hopes that’s enough, says a tenant who also doesn’t want her name to appear in the newspaper. “The cracks are now also running through load-bearing walls and are getting bigger from floor to floor.”

Here the tenants should not check whether the hand fits through the crack. But there are also unusual methods at Markgrafendamm 10 to convince them of the stability. “The site manager for the neighboring student residence moved into our attic and told us: If I live here, then it can’t be dangerous,” says the tenant.

Quarterback bought the house at Markgrafendamm 10 himself. Or rather, the company actually bought the company that owns the property. At least that’s what the property management wrote in an email to the tenants at the end of January 2022. The email also informed the tenants about the upcoming construction work. There is still talk that the construction site for the student residence extends from house number 7 to 9. Due to the purchase of the neighboring house, the address 7 to 10 is now given. The new building is “L-shaped,” as the tenant calls it, and extends to the street-facing area of ​​Markgrafendamm 10, where there is no longer a front building. That was destroyed in World War II.

The large tree in front of the house had to be felled for the construction work. In the mail from last year, the tenants are also informed that the windows facing the construction site will be bricked up and that a construction office or construction workers’ apartments will be set up in the vacant apartment on the ground floor and in the two apartments on the top floor.

The former owner company no longer rented out the empty apartments and then made them uninhabitable by dismantling the toilet and heating, says the tenant. Therefore, misappropriation due to vacancies was also reported. The district office confirms that there were applications for approval of the vacancy between 2020 and 2022, including “photos of the respective current state of the vacant residential units”. This was approved by the end of July 2022. “Meanwhile, the return for residential purposes has been proven by sending rental contracts,” it says. Only for the apartment on the ground floor there is still a permit for use as a construction office until May 2026.

That’s how long the work will probably take here. And even if there is nothing to cover up, as the inspector says, the construction site still has something symbolic about it. A complex with expensive furnished micro-apartments is being built there, a type of housing whose share of the rental housing market is constantly growing. And this high-priced »future of living« is already being announced very specifically by the tenants in the existing building. The apartment as we knew it is crumbling away.