Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
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J u n e 2 0 1 5 / S C T 5 C E N T E R S T A G E The Berlin mall how europa-Center helped win the Cold war By Bennett Voyles T he europa-CenTer had a lot more to sell than retail merchan- dise when it opened in West Berlin 50 years ago. Serving as a base for the tallest building in West Germany, the europa-Center was a symbol of the thriving West, gazed upon each day by thousands of less affluent Germans living east of the Berlin Wall. Back then, it was the only mall in West Berlin, and it loomed large in the east German imagination as a sym- bol of flashy, fun Western consumerism. although the europa-Center touts itself as "supercool since 1965," its chrome corridors and rainbow chandeliers mark it as a mall that has seen groovier days. The 24,000-square-me- ter (nearly 260,000 square feet) shopping cen- ter is no longer even among Berlin's 10 largest, and the 22-story office tower is only the 63rd- tallest building in Germany. Like so much in Berlin in the early 1960s, the europa-Center's development involved Cold War politics. de- veloper Karl heinz pepper laid the cornerstone on nov. 28, 1963, five months after John F. Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech — and six days after Kennedy's assassination. pepper and his partners invested some dM20 million (about $5 million then, the equivalent of roughly $40 million today), which was supplemented by dM23 million in Marshall plan grants, and dM41 million in mortgage loans, all of it sweetened further by an accelerated depreciation allowance that enabled the write-down of 75 percent of capi- tal invested in West Berlin after three years. The financing was so cleverly done that pep- per said the partnership would be worthwhile even if the finished product did not actually generate a profit, according to a 2005 article by historian alexander Sedlmaier. The europa-Center is located just off the Kurfürstendamm, Berlin's Fifth avenue, behind another important symbol of post- war Berlin, the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, a ruined church tower preserved as a World War II memorial. Together, these were representative of a new Berlin, one that was forward-looking without denying its ter- rible nazi past, according to architectural his- torian roman hillmann, a professor at the university of applied Sciences, in Berlin. at night, however, the symbol that at- tracted the most attention was a rotating, neon Mercedes-Benz logo on the office-tower roof. Mercedes executive Günter Wolfgang Weitz once observed it was the perfect place for "a symbol of a private company in the free world." at least one east Berliner certainly took it that way. nils Busch-petersen, director of the Berlin-Brandenburg Trade association, recalled to the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper that as a boy growing up in the east Berlin neighborhood of pankow he had looked long- ingly at the rotating star. When the Wall be- gan to crumble, on nov. 9, 1989, hundreds of thousands spent their first evening in the West on the Kurfürstendamm and in the europa- Center, which had normally seen no more than 40,000 visitors per day. The center's legacy reaches beyond Berlin too, observes Busch-petersen, noting that it brought a new word into the German language — "shopping" — which Germans now began to understand could be a leisure activity that meant much more than just buying stuff. SCT +1 646 728 3800 Fax: +1 732 694 1730 www.icsc.org Editor in Chief edMund Mander +1 646 728 3487 E D I T O R I A L Managing Editor Brannon BoSWeLL +1 646 728 3488 Copy Chief daVId S. orTIZ Copy Editor KrISTIna eLdredGe Art Director John d. LeWIS Contributing Editors STeVe BerGSMan MarGareT JaCKSon BeTh MaTTSon-TeIG STeVe M c LInden noeLLa pIo-KIVLehan reBeCCa MeISer anna roBaTon SpenCer ruMSey BarBara Thau BenneTT VoyLeS A D V E R MIChaeL BeLLI +1 714 313 1942 mbelli@icsc.org aMIe LeIBoVITZ +1 773 360 1179 aleibovitz@icsc.org SuZanne TanGuay +1 646 728 3475 stanguay@icsc.org SaLLy STephenSon +1 847 835 1617 sstephenson@icsc.org Production Manager daVId STaCKhouSe +1 646 728 3482 dstackhouse@icsc.org I C S C O F F I C E R S Chair man STephen d. LeBoVITZ President and CEO MIChaeL p. KerCheVaL Vice Chairman eLIZaBeTh I. hoLLand Past Chairman roBerT F. WeLaneTZ, CrX, CSM Treasurer GLEN HALE Secretary GreGory J. peTerSon Publisher rudoLph e. MILIan, CrX, CMd, CSM For article reprints, call (866) 879-9144 or contact sales@fostereprints.com. S H O P P I N G C E N T E R S T O D A Y SCT (ISSN 0885-9841) is pub lished monthly. VOLUME 36, ISSUE 6 © 2015, International Coun cil of Shop ping Cen ters, 1221 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020-1099; phone, +1 (646) 728 3800; fax, +1 732 694 1730. All rights reserved. Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y., and ad di tion al mailing offces. Sub scrip- tions $70 per year; Canada and other foreign $99. Single- copy price $10 (May issue $20). For subscription informa- tion call +1 727 784 2000. POST MAS TER: Send address changes to Shopping Cen ters Today, Sawida Worley, 1221 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020-1099. Publications mail agreement No. 41482022, return unde- liverable Canadian addresses to PO Box 503, RPO West Beaver Creek, Richmond Hill ON L4B 4R6.