Ground-level parking, open two-story entrance area and a spacious, bright salesroom on the first floor: The first Lidl-Metropole branch in Germany opened on September 19, 2019, at 7 o'clock after about one and a half years of construction.
With the new property in Frankfurt-Niederrad, Lidl has come up with a blueprint for a modern and sustainable store, which, with its low space requirements, is perfectly tailored to the highly compacted locations in urban areas. With state-of-the-art technology and an ecological construction, the building also meets the highest sustainability standards and is planned in accordance with the requirements of a Gold Certification of the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB).
"The Lidl-Metropolfiliale combines the advantages of a free-standing store with the space-saving design that is necessary in particularly densely built-up areas," explains Alexander Thurn, Real Estate Manager at Lidl Germany. "We offer our customers spacious ground-level daylight-flooded parking areas and save space by placing the modern and bright sales area directly above them. In this way, we respond directly to the needs of our customers in the major cities and we are the consumers' first choice - both for shopping on foot and for weekly shopping by car."
View of the high-tech shopping market in Frankfurt-Niederrad. Image: Lidl Germany
Lidl-Metropolfiliale - flexible solution for the urban area
Compared to a base branch with a regular parking lot, the Lidl metropolitan building requires significantly less space. From the parking lot and from the street, customers reach the first floor via escalators. The open entrance area has a gallery and floor-to-ceiling windows across both floors to the street. This creates a feeling of spaciousness throughout the store. A bright sales area with around 1,800 square meters of space allows an attractive presentation of goods. Wide aisles and low shelves make the store easy to look after and ensure a pleasant shopping atmosphere and an attractive working environment for the employees.
Thanks to the flexible concept of the metropolitan building, these can also be integrated into existing vacant lots and, provided that the necessary site conditions exist, it can be overbuilt with apartments, offices or other uses. In Frankfurt-Niederrad, for example, a pharmacy was added as additional use on the ground floor. "With this flexibility, we offer added value for cities, residents and customers," says Thurn.
Ecological construction at the highest level
"Sustainability plays a central role in the construction of our real estate," explains Dirk Brunner, real estate manager of the Lidl regional company Alzenau and responsible for the construction project. "That's why the branch uses state-of-the-art technology that saves energy and raw materials."
In the Lidl-Metropole branch, the waste heat from the cooling system is used and re-used - in conjunction with heat pumps - to air-condition the building. In this system, the company uses only natural refrigerants. With modern LED lighting and demand-controlled lighting in the side rooms, the company saves around 25,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year compared to conventional lighting.
A green roof filters pollutants from the air and supports water retention. On the roof, a photovoltaic system produces around 85,000 kilowatt hours of CO2-neutral electricity per year from solar energy - enough electricity for about 20 single-family homes. The system also supplies the power for the fast charging station on the branch parking lot, which is available to customers for their electric vehicles.
At the branch, around 45 colleagues ensure smooth processes and customer satisfaction. It is open Monday to Saturday from 7am to 10pm.
For more information: www.lidl.de