ECB Headquarters: Skyrocketing Costs for Skyscraper Project

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/cost-overruns-and-delays-plague-ecb-skyscraper-project-in-frankfurt-a-930352.html



Estimated costs for the European Central Bank's new headquarters in Frankfurt have more than doubled. As has been happening with so many major projects in Germany, its construction has been plagued by poor planning, oversight and execution -- and endless delays.

ECB Headquarters: Skyrocketing Costs for Skyscraper Project
By Andreas Wassermann
October 28, 2013 – 12:10 PM

Rain was falling on Frankfurt's Ostend neighborhood as financial managers and local officials drove past dark corner bars, betting offices and the Amor sex shop to the site of the future headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB).

It was May 19, 2010. Jean-Claude Trichet, the ECB's president at the time, had invited his guests to a dicey part of the city for the groundbreaking ceremony. They gathered in front of the building pit, from which a futuristic tower was to arise: an architecturally thrilling, 45-story skyscraper, a symbol of the power of Europe's shared currency.

A few euros were ceremoniously buried with the cornerstone. Trichet declared that his bank's policy of carefully managing its money would also apply to the construction of the new headquarters. "We must ensure that construction costs remain within the estimated budget," Trichet said.

Three-and-a-half years later, in the fall of 2013, there is a different reality in Frankfurt's Ostend district. Instead of the original estimated cost of €500 million ($690 million), the entire project will now cost at least €1.15 billion and could even eventually climb to €1.3 billion. The ECB has also had to postpone its move. Originally scheduled for completion in 2011, the building is now not expected to be ready for occupancy until at least the end of 2014.