Hamburg purchases HSV’s venue property

Image: firo Sportphoto

Hamburg, officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg in Germany – has bought the property of the 57,000-capacity football stadium Volksparkstadion – home of the German sport club Hamburger SV. However, the stadium has not been bought as part of the deal and is very much the football club’s property.

The purchase has been done keeping in mind the sporting spectacle Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Euro 2024 which Germany is going to host and the sporting extravaganza is scheduled from June 14, 2024, to July 14, 2024.

A lot of planning has to be done in regard to the sporting showpiece and Hamburger SV will also have to redecorate their residence Volksparkstadion for the same.

Euro 2024 will be the 17^th edition of the UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international men’s football championship of Europe organized by UEFA – the administrative body for association football, futsal and beach soccer in Europe.

Recently, the City of Hamburg and Hamburger SV inked a letter of intent on the restructuring of the ownership structure of the facility’s land. As per the agreement reached, the City will buy the land for 23.5 million euros from the German sports club in lieu of the club’s heritable building rights granted with a term until at least 2087. This can be extended with an option until 2117. The normal market annual ground rent will be 1.8 percent of the property value.

The heritable building right was introduced in Germany in 1919 with the Heritable Building Right Law in order to promote residential construction and to enable the marginalized section of the society to build houses. The heritable building right divides up ownership of property by separating the parcel of land from the buildings.

“With this restructuring of the ownership of the stadium property into a long-term heritable building right, despite the immense economic challenges we are facing due to COVID-19, we can organize the Volksparkstadion on our own for the future and especially keeping in mind UEFA Euro 2024,” opined Hamburger SV Board Member Frank Wettstein while talking to mediapersons recently.

“The investments should primarily make the Hamburger SV home games more attractive. With this agreement, we can carry out extensive repurposing of the facility despite the coronavirus curse and significant revenue losses. As the deal is in sync with the urban property strategy, we have jointly designed an optimal solution for all parties,” Wettstein added.

“With this agreement we are creating long-term location security for the Volksparkstadion, which is a good piece of news because Hamburg, Hamburger SV and the Volksparkstadion are like one entity,” remarked Finance Senator and Chairman of the Board of Directors of LIG Dr Andreas Dressel on the club’s homepage.

“Both sides benefit from this joint commitment to the football location in Volkspark and the City can advance its new land policy with its second largest heritable building right and secure its strategic interests in the urban areas in the long term. Hamburger SV will also get a strong financial footing keeping in view the huge damage which the deadly virus has inflicted on the economy as well as gear up for UEFA Euro 2024.”

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