SoHo House, Berlin Broods Over a Glitz Invasion

Click picture for original article from the Wall Street Journal by Vanessa Fuhrams.

In most world-class cities, the opening of a Soho House—a string of London-born, ultra-hip private social clubs—marks another exclusive playground for the creative in-crowd. In Berlin, where the members-only brand opened its latest outpost in May, it’s sparked an identity crisis.

Launched 15 years ago in the eponymous London neighborhood, the Soho House franchise has spread to New York and Los Angeles, will open in mid-October in Miami, and is perhaps best known to the non-member masses from a 2003 “Sex and the City” episode in which Carrie Bradshaw and her pals are bounced out of its Manhattan venue’s rooftop pool after sneaking in. Belonging requires a certain quotient of hipness—with credentials preferably in the media, entertainment, fashion or art worlds—the endorsement of two members and an annual fee between $935 and $1,800, depending on the city.

The Berlin club, a hulking Bauhaus building that housed a Jewish department store in the 1920s, then the Hitler Youth’s headquarters, opened in glam style. At a preopening party, Damien Hirst spray-painted a shark on a construction wall that now decorates its cavernous, cement-floored lobby. In the weeks afterward, German celebrities such as Wolfgang Joop and director Wim Wenders and other Berlin glitterati have flocked to rub shoulders at the poolside bar or on its chintz-covered sofas.

At first glance, it’s easy to see why Soho House founder Nick Jones chose the German capital as the club’s first outpost on the Continent: In the 20 years since the fall of the Wall, Berlin has become Europe’s hottest cultural mecca, teeming with galleries, night clubs and budding designers—just the kind of creative cool the club seeks to embody. “Berlin is like a child screaming and kicking in all directions, and we want to be part of that,” says Chris Glass, the Berlin club’s membership manager.

But not all Berliners, proud and protective of their anarchic, gritty brand of cool, are sure they want to grow up into the Soho House’s more upscale version of it.

The city’s creative energy and social scene have long been shaped by the starving artists and hipsters lured by its cheap rents and abandoned building space over the years—the flip side of the capital’s nearly 15% unemployment rate (roughly double the German national average) and nearly €60 billion ($78 billion) debt burden. “Poor but sexy”—as Berlin’s mayor, Klaus Wowereit, inadvertently branded the metropolis in 2003—a large contingent remains stubbornly wary of gentrification symbols, from the rise in rents and strollers in the once avant-garde neighborhood of Prenzlauer Berg to a $3.2 billion airport being built just outside the city. Even BMWs are suspect: Last year a record 270 cars, most of them luxury brands, were torched here.

The resulting reaction to the Soho House has been a mixture of fascination and fretting. “The city’s scene still must be convinced of a club in which you have to pay a membership fee,” cautioned the daily Berliner Morgenpost. German fashion blog “Les Mads” worried it would be a “step in the wrong direction” to try to “encapsulate” Berlin’s creative scene in a members-only club. Vandalizers were more to the point: Shortly after the Soho House project was announced a couple years ago, they grafittied its façade with “No Exclusive Club!” and the insistence that the building become a youth center instead.

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transactions of packages in excess of 1,000 units pick up

Source SAVILLS

• 60 residential portfolio transactions comprising a total of 33,900 units

• Total transaction volume: approx. €1.99 billion

• More than half of the number of all units purchased by foreign  investors

In the first half of 2010 the German market for residential portfolios saw 60 residential packages comprising a total of just below 33,900 units change hands. This marks a slight fall compared to the second half of 2009 when 74 portfolios totalling 34,400 units were transacted. The total volume traded therefore declined marginally from approx. € 2.1 billion in H2 2009 to approx. €2.0 billion in the first six months of 2010.

”In the first half of 2010 the market for residential portfolios was characterised by two trends: the portfolios sold were slightly larger and foreign investor activity increased significantly”, reports Matthias Pink, researcher of Savills Germany. Savills recorded nine transactions comprising in excess of 1,000 units each. In 2009 just eleven transactions of this scale took place. Five of the extensive portfolios transacted so far in 2010 were purchased by foreign investors whereas in the previous year this was the case with two transactions only. In the first six months of 2010 foreign investors purchased approx. 18,500 units representing slightly more than half of the total number of units sold.

The data shows the market has continued to widen in terms of quality of the properties. “On the one hand closed-end funds purchased high-quality stock or project developments in prospering metropolitan areas, on the other hand we saw the return of opportunistic investments”, Benjamin Poddig, Associate Director Corporate Finance – Valuation and responsible for the valuation of residential property at Savills, describes the market situation of the past months. This is also reflected in purchase prices as various transactions took place both in the range between €250/sqm and €500/sqm and the segment of €2,500/sqm and above. A similar situation prevails in terms of multipliers ranging from the seven-fold of the annual net rental income to in excess of the 20-fold.

In the second half of the year the market situation is expected to continue its shift towards the opportunistic sector. Whilst a surge of distressed sales continues to be unlikely the pressure of creditor banks on owners of distressed portfolios will be constantly increasing. Investment activity in the core sector is anticipated to match its level of the past twelve months. The investors’ pressure to buy remains high but transactions are particularly limited by the lack of product. The total transaction volume Savills predicts is likely to outstrip its 2009 result in 2010 of approx. €3.4 billion.

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From the incredible and innovative creators of the extremely successful Lux 11, a new star is born: The Weinmeister. Equally as original but entirely incomparable, The Weinmeister will soon be referred to as Berlin’s “Golden Cage,” its façade plated and luminescent. The newest addition to Mitte’s ever-increasing luxury market will be the area’s finest jewel yet. The extraordinarily daring design can be described as Brutal Living/Luxury Punk (emphasis on luxury). A visual and tactile experience, one really has to see it to believe it. Keeping consistent with Lux 11’s dedication to cater towards the business-leisure traveller, The Weinmeister is a particularly intimate space with an extreme emphasis on privacy and authenticity.

The hotel’s 88 rooms start at 30sqm each, a quite sizeable homage to the importance and excess of space in Berlin. But to be sure, there is nothing subtle about the Weinmeister, or the leaders behind its development, Tom Tänzer and Elmo Hagendorf. “Hate it or Love it,” they say, but to be honest, one really can’t help loving it.

Finally, Steve Wonder returns to Germany, on 07.13.2010 at the Zitadelle in Spandau.

One of the largest music – icons of our time, the legendary STEVIE WONDER is back on tour, having closed out as the final act at Glastonbury this year for the 40^th anniversary event, The Tour is the sequel to his last, sensational and sold-out ‘A Wonder Summer Night Tour’ in 2008, with incredible reviews, the 25 times Grammy awards winner is sure to please his Berlin audience on Tuesday evening.

The Zitadelle is also host to further international acts throughout the remainder of 2010 including, Toto, Jethro Tull and Queens of the Stone Age to pick out just a few of the headline acts on various dates over the summer.

Zitadelle Spandau, Berlin, Germany.