Aspern Seestadt is a perfect example of a new urban district

Live and work like in a holiday resort that is also a magnet for new research institutions and companies.

2010, work began on building a new district of Vienna on the site of the former Aspern airfield. The ambitious goal: to create a living space for more than 25,000 people and 20,000 potential jobs and apprenticeships. From the very beginning, emphasis was placed on sustainability in every respect and seamless connections to the public transport network. Gerhard Schuster has been CEO of Wien 3420 Aspern Development since 2014 and knows “his” Seestadt like no other – and can point to spectacular successes after around ten years.

How far has the expansion of Aspern Seestadt progressed?
Gerhard Schuster: Today, more than a third of Aspern Seestadt has been completed. After the Pioneer Quarter, the Seepark Quarter and a business quarter with a focus on technological innovation, production and crafts south of the lake, the first quarter on the north shore has already been largely completed. It is called Am Seebogen and stretches from the U2 station Seestadt east and west of the elevated metro line along the Elinor Ostrom Park to the north.
Currently, more than 11,000 people live in Seestadt, and more than 25,000 will when we complete it in the early 2030s. At the same time, we are pleased to already have more than 500 companies on site, from single-person enterprises to international technology companies with more than 500 employees. In total, about 5,000 people are now working in Seestadt. Our goal is to have created over 20,000 jobs and apprenticeships in the district by the time our development activities are completed. With two educational campuses of the City of Vienna – the third is already being planned – a school, two private universities and the Central Vocational School for up to 7,000 pupils, which is scheduled to start operating in 2028, Seestadt is already a real player as an educational site, not only within Vienna’s 22nd district. Cooperation with several universities with a focus on manufacturing and IoT as well as mobility research with the Vienna University of Technology also has a great effect on our R&D ecosystem.

What are the biggest challenges facing Aspern Seestadt in its development in the years to come?
Schuster: We are becoming the new regional centre in the northeast of Vienna. That means we must not only think about the needs of the residents or the local economy. We have to look at the wider picture, be it in the area of mobility, be it energy needs, social infrastructure and much more. A real challenge is therefore the expansion and interconnection of the various infrastructures. Seestadt continues to grow north of the lake, and we are currently directing a lot of attention towards our major transport hub Aspern North. We have already had a large interchange station there since 2018, which connects the rail link from Hütteldorf in the west of Vienna via the Central Railway Station to Bratislava with the Vienna underground network. In addition, several bus lines also stop here. From autumn 2025, the first of two tram lines will also serve Seestadt. In 2026, a new connection will be built via the efficient City Road. All these planning processes of the City of Vienna and the major infrastructure providers Wiener Linien, Austrian Federal Railways ÖBB and the motorway company Asfinag have to be coordinated with our expansion. With the planning effort and our ongoing construction work, we are making good use of the resources on the market. The added value in the construction industry and with all suppliers is enormous.
Incidentally, we always work under the premise that maximum sustainability, resource conservation and, above all, avoiding carbon emissions are already taken into account during construction; we develop and improve sustainability standards and cooperate with a wide variety of research institutions and associations. In addition, we would like to be a driver of digitisation in the construction and real estate industry much more than we have been in the past, because we see great leverage for climate protection here; the cooperation with the innovation lab ‘Digital findet Stadt’ is therefore very important for us.

What makes Aspern Seestadt a business location with a future?
Schuster: Our outstanding location qualities. We have excellent access to space reserves that are integrated into a master plan, and we have excellent connections. From the centre of Seestadt you can reach Praterstern or the Central Railway Station in 20 minutes. On the other hand, Seestadt offers a high quality of life for the people who work here. The lively Waterfront at the U2 station, which will be built in the next few years, will provide a perfect lunch break or after-work atmosphere with its restaurants and shops. And the eateries and shops already offer an attractive mix. In addition, there are various childcare facilities, state-of-theart schools and attractive apartments. But above all, we are very proud that a colourful range of companies has already settled in Aspern Seestadt.

How difficult is it to convince companies – in particular manufacturing and research – to settle in Aspern Seestadt? Are there incentives?
Schuster: The Vienna Business Agency made a start by constructing Component 1 of the Technology Centre as the very first building in Seestadt. Right now, work is going ahead at full speed on the third of five planned components, and the list of tenants is really impressive. R&D is very important here. The pilot factory for Industry 4.0 at ‘TZ1’ kicked off this process and has been networking science and business in applied research for years. For the past two years, the European Institute for Technology has also been based in the ‘Eastern Europe Hub’ of the Manufacturing division, in ‘TZ2’. It uses and expands the Seestadt’s innovation network. In the meantime, a real pull has developed from this ecosystem in the field of life sciences. One biotech company has already been researching and producing in Seestadt for two years, another started its construction in 2023 and a third is currently planning its first production site.

Are you aiming primarily at start-ups when it comes to the companies that are to settle in Seestadt?
Schuster: As urban developers, we don’t target them exclusively, because the right mix is important to us. But we appreciate their drive and potential and see ourselves very much as a facilitator. The many services offered by the Vienna Business Agency – from funding advice and several calls to the Startup Academy at the Technology Centre – are also extremely valuable. I can only advise start-ups to look into the many services and pick up the know-how. The new Gewerbehof Seestadt is now also a perfect location for craft businesses and manufacturing SMEs. Top facilities, efficient space plans, divided ancillary rooms, a large underground loading yard and much more make it the ideal location for a productive place.

What makes Aspern Seestadt so attractive as a research location? There are already facilities from the Vienna University of Technology and research-based biotech companies. Will there be further projects and settlements in future?
Schuster: First of all, the excellent offer in the Technology Centre Seestadt of the Business Agency itself is certainly convincing. The buildings are ideally equipped, innovators can develop pilot projects there and access the know-how of the universities and find cooperation partners and synergies as easily as hardly anywhere else

In planning Aspern Seestadt, emphasis was placed on sustainability from the very beginning. What has been the greatest achievement in this regard so far and are there any planned lighthouse projects?
Schuster: From the very beginning, the mass management was extremely prudent and consistent. The basic idea was that as little material as possible should be transported out of or into Seestadt. For example, 600,000 tonnes of excavated material for the lake alone were temporarily stored on site for construction or immediately processed in a separate concrete plant. Even the demolished runways could be recycled and reprocessed on site. We are currently evaluating our figures again, but in 2020 we stopped at around 280,000 HGV trips saved and an estimated 6,000 tonnes of carbon emissions saved.
With our mandatory quality standards such as the Total Quality Building-Monitoring System of the Austrian Sustainable Building Council (ÖGNB) or, more recently, the Aspern Klimafit building standard, we are creating a level of sustainability across the board that is certainly unique in Austria. Currently, we are focusing our efforts on energy solutions that will make us in the north largely independent of the district heating grid. Energy solutions in urban quarters will shape the future of urban development and we want to be the absolute driving force here.

Please explain briefly how the ‘first managed shopping street in Austria’ works and is being managed.
Schuster: In a nutshell, we defined certain zones from the very beginning in which mainly retail and gastronomy should be developed, i.e. shopping streets. They are centrally located in the neighbourhoods, are perfectly connected to the public and invite people to stroll and cycle. The plinth areas have a mandatory height of at least four metres, which is important to allow for all types of premises. In certain highly frequented sections of these shopping streets or at neuralgic points, we, together with our joint venture partner Spar European Shopping Centers as the shopping street enterprise, are both tenant and landlord to so-called shop partners. In this way, we were able to ensure that a healthy local supply and gastronomy mix is always guaranteed, right from the start and also during the difficult phase of the Covid pandemic. We carry out some central management and services for our partners and make sure that the residents and employees are supplied better and better.

Can you guarantee affordable housing in the long term in times of exploding rental costs?
Schuster: Aspern Seestadt is an extremely popular place to live and a highly sought-after investment. That’s why it has never been difficult to provide affordable housing in a variety of forms with and without subsidies at a very high level.
Our master plan and our utilisation plans provide for the creation of about two-thirds affordable, subsidised housing. Thanks to the excellent cooperation with the City of Vienna in the area of planning and social infrastructure and the corresponding investment security for non-profit developers, I am very optimistic about the future. Seestadt will remain affordable without sacrificing its quality standards

Why should people move to Aspern Seestadt – what are the three best reasons for you?
Schuster: The lifestyle is unique, and many residents compare it to a holiday. The infrastructure is excellent, and what you don’t find directly in Seestadt is easily accessible thanks to the excellent connections. And the economic dynamism is so great that the number of jobs on the doorstep is growing practically every day.