European Central Bank Headquarters

The European Central Bank Headquarters is a proposed building complex located in the eastern part of Frankfurt, Germany. It includes a 185-metre-skyscraper which will be the new headquarter for the European Central Bank (ECB). The domicile of the ECB needs to be within the city limits of Frankfurt, the largest financial centre in the Eurozone, as it was declared by the Amsterdam Treaty.

The ECB currently resides in the Eurotower, the old Commerzbank Tower and the Eurotheum in the Bankenviertel (financial district) of Frankfurt.

Development

In 1999, an international architectural competition was launched by the bank to design a new building. It was won by a Vienna-based architectural office called Coop Himmelbau. The building will be approximately 185 meters tall and will be accompanied by other secondary buildings on a landscaped site on the site of the former wholesale market (Großmarkthalle) in the eastern part of Frankfurt. The main construction work was planned to commence in October 2008, with completion scheduled for before the end of 2011.

Construction was planned to start in late 2008, but was put on hold in June 2008 as the ECB was unable to find a contractor that would build the Skytower for the allocated budget of €500 millionFAZ, 27. Juni 2008 (German, retrieved...
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