Conversion of the old trade fair center in Leipzig is progressing

The development of the Old fair in Leipzig continues to take shape. After the Leipzig City Archives moved into the front part of the listed Soviet Pavilion in 2019, a new hall is to be built in the rear part by 2025/26. Offices for the youth welfare office and a Biotech Innovation Center, as Kai Thalmann, Managing Director of the responsible companies LGH and LEVG, said. Civil engineering for an underground car park and underground depot rooms is currently underway, and the shell of the hall around the surviving skeleton of the old building should begin in 2023.

The Soviet Pavilion, with its red star on a golden spire, is one of the most distinctive buildings at the old exhibition center. In GDR times it was the exhibition hall of the Soviet Union, later it stood empty for many years and was used, among other things, as a storage area for the stalls of the Leipzig Christmas market. According to Thalmann, more than 150 million euros are to be invested in two construction phases in the expansion of the rear hall.

Parts of the exhibition grounds in Leipzig live on

In the development of the 50-hectare site, the city of Leipzig is focusing heavily on the so-called life science area. In the past, settlements such as those of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology or the Biodiversity Research Center iDiv.

"It's really very positive how life science has grown," said Thalmann. High-quality jobs are being created in this area and there is potential for growth.

But other parts of the site continue to come alive. For example, a hardware store chain built on the former Hall 17, which is also listed. The new store should open in the first quarter of 2023, said Thalmann. In total, more than 4000 jobs have now been created at the old trade fair.