On 21 November 2014, Hamburg Süd laid the foundation stone for the extension to the shipping company’s headquarters in Hamburg. The new building is going up at Willy-Brandt-Straße (WBS) 63 and 65 on the plots adjacent to the traditional Hamburg Süd head office (WBS 59 and 61). The laying of the foundation stone was performed by Dr Ottmar Gast, Chairman of the Executive Board of Hamburg. True to long-standing tradition, a capsule containing coins and banknotes, a daily newspaper and Hamburg Süd time records was set into the foundations.
Invited to the ceremony were representatives of the City of Hamburg and of the companies involved in construction, among them Schreiber Hochbau
Projektmanagement, which is responsible for overseeing the project, as well as the general planners, firm KSP Jürgen Engel Architekten. In his address, Dr Heino Schmidt, Member of the Executive Board of Hamburg Süd, thanked all the companies working on the building, saying: “Today we are laying the foundation stone for a modern building that is aimed at providing Hamburg Süd’s employees in the future with an attractive and motivating work environment in the heart of Hamburg.”
In addition to the new construction, the listed head office building is undergoing thorough refurbishment and a floor added to the high-rise. The entire complex will draw together all the shipping company’s roughly 800 workplaces currently located in Hamburg. Building work is due to be completed in early 2016.