Donau City, or Vienna DC, is a new part of Vienna‘s 22nd District Donaustadt, next to both the Reichsbrücke and the left bank of the Danube‘s 21.1 km new channel, Neue Donau. Construction work for the first building on this site, the Andromeda Tower, started in 1996. Although the Danube river has been inextricably connected with Vienna, for centuries, it had played only a subordinate role in the city of Vienna. Unlike in many other cities, the Danube River, because of the numerous floods it regularly caused, was omitted from the urban area. Buildings grew up in Vienna on both sides of the Danube – but not up to the Danube. Only after extensive flood-control engineering and the creation of the New Danube relief channel, with Danube Island, in the 1970s, was the surrounding cityscape of the Danube of interest to builders.
The terrain gained increasing importance with the opening of the congress center Austria Center Vienna in 1987. Next, at the end of the 1980s, there were plans to hold a Vienna-Budapest EXPO along the northern bank of the Danube in Vienna. However, the planned EXPO 1995 was canceled because a majority of Viennese voters rejected it in a referendum on the project. The site was then developed for a subsequent use as a multifunctional district. In 1991, the EXPO organizing corporation was succeeded by the Vienna Danube Region Development Corporation (WED), with major Austrian banks and insurance companies (BA-CA, Erste Bank, Raiffeisen Bank for Labor and Economy, Invest Bank AG, UNIQA, Wiener Städtische) as principal shareholders. WED owns the area and is responsible for its overall development. Within a few years, the district became a second urban center in Vienna, with residential and office buildings, research facilities, recreational facilities and event locations.
The Donau City development concept is a broad mix of uses: office and commercial uses, up to 70 percent, residential use of about 20 percent, and cultural and Freitzeiteinrichtungen of approximately 10 percent. Approximately 7,500 people currently live and work in this new “city within a city”. With the overall expansion, which is expected to be completed in 2012, the population could increase to 15,000. International companies such as IBM, sanofi-aventis and Bauholding Strabag SE are also located in Donau City. Also established are well-known high-tech companies that deal with their employees and scientific institutions in Vienna’s first Science and Technology Park, Tech Gate Vienna. In addition to the above institutions, Donau City has stores, restaurants, cafes, offices, a school and a church. The area bordering the Danube Island has recreation areas, Donaupark and Old Danube. Donau City has two direct connections to the motorway network, and the Vienna International Airport is about 20 minutes away.
In 2002, WED organized an international competition for a master plan to complete the remaining undeveloped third of the core area. The competition was won by French architect Dominique Perrault, who proposed two high-rise towers and a transition zone to the New Danube. The 60-story DC Tower 1, about 220 meters tall, will be Austria’s tallest building. Together with the 46-story DC Tower 2, 160 meters tall, it will bring a new density to the district. A third tower at 100 meters will complement the skyline. Construction is expected after the DC Towers in 5 years. In addition, also planned are: a block of flats (about 50 meters high), a house of the cultures of about 70m, and a Sea Life Center over the covered motorway. On October 2, 2012 S+B Gruppe and Sorovia Group announced in a joint press release the construction of another high-rise called “Danube Flats”. It will contain 500 flats distributed over 45 floors and 145 meters located next to the “Hochhaus Neue Donau”. Overall the two developing companies will invest a total of € 140 millions on this project. Construction is scheduled to start in 2014 and end in 2016.
