UBM plans development of the world’s tallest wooden high-rise in Vienna

21 June 2023

UBM Development is taking over a project on Vienna’s Handelskai from the Signa Group for 24.5 million euros (including existing property financing). A 113-metre-high office tower in timber hybrid construction is to be built on the site. As it stands today, the Donaumarina Tower would be the tallest wooden high-rise in the world. “A perfect example of a win-win situation” says Thomas G. Winkler, CEO of UBM Development AG, and continues: “The Donaumarina Tower fits perfectly into our strategy.”

The tower is to comprise 32 upper floors and 4 underground floors with around 44,350 square metres of floor space and is located directly at the U2 Donaumarina station in the “Waterfront” development area. Vienna’s city centre can be reached in 12 minutes by public transport and Schwechat airport in 15 minutes by car. The Marina Tower and the Donaumarina Apartments were recently built in the immediate vicinity.

The building will comply with EU taxonomy and ESG guidelines, and LEED Gold certification is the target. In order to ensure the most environmentally friendly operation of the office tower, geothermal energy, groundwater utilisation and the installation of photovoltaic modules are also planned.

The Donaumarina Tower represents another milestone for UBM on its way to becoming the leading developer of timber construction projects in Europe. The real estate developer already has more than a quarter of a million square metres of timber construction in the pipeline, exactly 265,400 square metres, slightly more than half of it in the office asset class, the rest in residential. The “LeopoldQuartier” on Vienna’s Danube Canal, with around 75,000 square metres of floor space, is Europe’s first urban quarter to be built purely as a timber hybrid. By the end of next year, the foundations for five more timber construction projects will be laid in Munich, Mainz, Düsseldorf and Prague, namely Timber Factory, Timber Peak, Timber View, Timber Port and Timber Praha.

The visualisation shows the “Donaumarina Tower” in the middle. To the right of it is the Marina Tower, to the left of it the ÖGB headquarters, the “Catamaran”.

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