Promotion and development of the city center
For around a year, Wiesbaden's newly established city management team has been working on strategies and measures to strengthen the city center and adapt to changes.
"The city centers, not only in Wiesbaden, have been undergoing a fundamental structural change for some time, consumer behavior is changing and expectations of the city center have become more demanding. For this reason, we reorganized the city's city management a year ago. And in recent months, a whole series of measures have already been successfully implemented to further promote and develop Wiesbaden's city center," says Mayor Christiane Hinninger, looking back on the tasks and work of the city management.
For the past year, city management has been a separate staff unit in the mayor's department, with an office in the centrally located Ellenbogengasse and expanded personnel and financial resources. City Manager Jens Ackermann and his team jointly plan, organize and coordinate strategies, measures and projects based on Wiesbaden's "City Centre Master Plan" in order to further develop the city centre as an attractive, lively and economically successful shopping and experience area.
Coordination office for players and topics in the city center
"We take care of urban design and quality of stay in public spaces, organize experience-oriented and identity-creating events, promote retail, gastronomy and services, work in networks and committees or take care of location communication, vacancy management and citizen participation," says City Manager Ackermann, explaining the core tasks of his team. As a link to the city administration, they work closely with all stakeholders in the city center - from businesses, hotels, restaurants, the real estate industry, cultural workers and market vendors to interest groups and residents - and see themselves as a coordination office that also encourages cooperation.
Diversity of use makes city centers resilient to change
"The key to strengthening Wiesbaden's city centre is its diversity of use," emphasizes the city manager. Residents, visitors and businesses have different requirements. "However, city centers are facing a fundamental change." Although city centers have always been multifunctional, the focus in recent decades has primarily been on retail as a source of footfall, explains Jens Ackermann. "In view of changing conditions and requirements, attractive city centers now increasingly combine other areas of life such as living and working, leisure and culture or participation and urban climate as equal functions in addition to retail and gastronomy - this also makes them resilient to change. We want to actively shape this transformation and see Wiesbaden's city center as a high-quality recreational space for everyone," says Ackermann.
Federal funding program "Sustainable inner cities and centers" (ZIZ)
The city management can also use financial resources from the federal funding program "Zukunftsfähige Innenstädte und Zentren" (ZIZ) for its work until the end of 2025. Among other things, this enables the testing of innovative concepts and strategies for managing structural change in city and district centers.
As part of the ZIZ funding, the city's Department of Statistics and Urban Research is also scientifically monitoring the development of Wiesbaden's city center. Comparative values result from the inventory of the city center during the corona pandemic. "In summary, our analyses show that Wiesbaden's city center has recovered from the pandemic, but that the structural change in the city center and the change in demands on the city center are continuing," explains Peter Becker, Head of Urban Research and Surveys.
Analyses of the city center
An analysis of footfall shows that the number of visitors to the city center has recovered significantly from 2021 to 2024, the length of stay remains surprisingly stable and the number of those who feel very comfortable in the city center has almost doubled. The main result of a survey of passers-by in the fall of this year is that the city center is perceived more positively again, but there are also various wishes, such as more quality of stay, cleanliness or better public transport or parking facilities. At the same time, the number of respondents who use online retail continues to increase.
A survey of retailers and restaurants, also conducted in the fall of this year, shows a relatively balanced mood; there are still dissatisfactions in the areas of labor availability, parking fees and municipal charges, for example. After 26% of the businesses surveyed reported a significant decline in sales figures during the coronavirus crisis, the situation has since recovered somewhat: 41% reported a (significant) increase in sales, but around 15% of businesses also reported further significant declines. This shows that Wiesbaden's city center is still undergoing structural change.
Participation "Thinking ahead in the city center"
"However, the transformative power of the state capital of Wiesbaden can only really unfold in all the projects for the city center if the citizens and tradespeople help shape the development with their practical experience and needs," says City Manager Ackermann, referring to personal initiative and constructive and cooperative collaboration in informal processes as important elements of city center development. This is why a process for participation has been set up under the name "Thinking the city center forward". This includes various event formats, surveys and discussions. The contact point for interested parties is the specially created "Werkraum Innenstadt" in Kleine Schwalbacher Straße.
Projects that the city management team has implemented so far in 2024 include
- The play container on Schlossplatz, the Hollywood swings on the Dern site and the eight sunshades with seating in the city center
- The "PlayFountain" water playground
- The afternoon market on Luisenplatz
- The environmental scouts, who raise awareness of the important issue of waste avoidance through communication at eye level
- The further development of the city festival by local artists and associations under the motto "Your city. Your stage"
- Activities such as open-air artistry with artists and street performers around the pedestrian zone
- Christmas lighting in Grabenstrasse and Wagemanstrasse and the THermine tourist train run as a shooting star market shuttle