Lucerne is incorporating housing into the town hall

Seetalplatz in Emmenbrücke is not only the site of the new administrative headquarters for the Canton of Lucerne. The 192-million-franc development will also bring 17 rental flats onto the market. This demonstrates how new public buildings in the Lucerne North area are increasingly incorporating mixed-use developments.

The new administrative headquarters of the Canton of Lucerne at Seetalplatz in Emmenbrücke is set to become a hybrid project. Alongside space for more than 2,000 staff, the new building will also house 17 rental flats. This means that a small but visible residential component is coming onto the market in a building primarily designed for administration and central services.

The key news here lies not only in the property advertisements themselves. More significantly, a public administrative building in one of Central Switzerland’s most important development locations is deliberately being supplemented with third-party uses. According to publicly available project documents, flats and other third-party spaces form part of the building’s economic rationale. The canton is thus combining administrative use, revenue-generating spaces and a connection to the local neighbourhood within a single building.

Housing as part of the financing mix
The 17 flats were included in the project at an early stage. The cantonal statement on the construction states that, together with third-party spaces, they are intended to contribute to the financial viability of the administrative building. At the same time, the canton is consolidating around 30 organisational units at Seetalplatz and relocating a large proportion of its currently decentralised office sites to a new building with good public transport links. The project is therefore more than just an administrative building; it is also a key component of the area’s development in northern Lucerne.

According to available information, the flats are due to be ready for occupation on 1 November. Units ranging from 1.5 to 4.5 rooms are on offer. Rents quoted range from 1,500 Swiss francs, including service charges, for 45 square metres to 2,550 Swiss francs for 103 square metres. No parking spaces are provided for tenants. This is in keeping with the location directly at the Seetalplatz bus hub, but at the same time raises the question of how large-scale mixed-use projects organise their mobility when even the administration itself has no on-site parking available.

Seetalplatz is consolidating its functions
For the property sector, the logic behind the use of the space is of particular interest. The canton is not constructing a self-contained, specialised building, but rather a building housing administration, retail and residential units. In regeneration areas, such mixed-use developments increase occupancy rates, encourage longer periods of presence in the neighbourhood and spread the risk associated with individual uses more widely. Particularly in locations such as Seetalplatz, where administrative functions, a transport hub and residential development are spatially clustered closely together, this combination becomes an urban planning tool.

There is also a second effect: according to cantonal documents, the move to Seetalplatz will free up around 38,000 square metres of office space in the city and greater Lucerne area, which can in future be repurposed as office space or for residential use. The new building thus not only creates its own residential space within the complex but also triggers a shift in the existing property portfolio. Just how quickly these spaces are actually repurposed is likely to become one of the more interesting follow-up questions arising from the project.