Andreas Murkudis | Bye, bye Mitte

Hilker: You're relocating from Münzstraße in Mitte to Potsdamer Straße in Tiergarten. Instead of the area around Potsdamer Platz, you've decided to move into the Tagesspiegel's former office building. Rumor has it that this area's on the rise.

Andreas Murkudis: I suppose there might be a few things going on.

What do you mean?

Well I look at it through a different dimention. I went to the Sophie-Scholl school in Schöneberg when I was growing up in the 70's. My family and I lived in Wedding and I would commute over here on a bus that drove past the Reichstag and the Philharmonie along Potsdamer Straße, so I've known the area for ages. But I don't recall any dramatic changes over the past 30 or 40 years.

30 years ago, there was a brothel at the corner, drugs were being dealt and prostitution has been par for the course in the area to this day. But very recently, a number of galleries have opened up and talk of a new "gallery district“ is on everyone's lips.

Take Mitte for an example, though. It has changed dramatically within six or seven years, almost like a movie in quick motion. Just look at the rent prices. Six years ago, you could rent a store in Mitte for ten euros per square meter, now we're at 120 euros per square meter.

Have rent prices reached their climax?

Probably not. The smaller the space, the more expensive it will get. The rate of outpricing is tremendous.

How important is the Hype factor for a district? Are there certain guiding principles for the gentrification of an area?

It's not that easy to explain. With Mitte, there just wasn't a real alternative. Commercial rents were affordable. The available stores were perfectly sized, about 50 to 100 square meters, with enough room for interesting concepts: books, coffee, sneakers. Berliners and newcomers would either move to Prenzlauer Berg or Mitte. You had the right people at the right place. Once the cool kids were there, the chain stores wanted to be where the cool kids were. If you give up a shop in Mitte nowadays, you'll have at least 50 applicants lining up for the property.

Who do you mean by cool kids?

All I know is I'm not one of them. I'm too old.

You're only 49!

I signed a 15 year lease for my property on Potsdamer Straße. Of course there are a lot of other things I'd like to do but in 15 years I'll be 64. I really enjoy doing this, otherwise I wouldn't be doing it. The former Tagesspiegel property spans 1000 square meters – they used to accomodate an entire printing section.

So compared to Mitte, Potsdamer Straße has developed rather sluggishly.

At some point the media appointed Wedding, Neukölln, Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain as new hip areas. But no one ever mentioned this strip of Potsdamer Straße. The Winterfeldt market has always been great, even back when I went to school here. But no one was really paying any attention to side streets like Pohlstraße or Lützowstraße. And that's what I found so intruiging. I knew the area around Münzstraße would tip over at some point, I'd been looking around for quite a while and I had ruled out Friedrichshain and Prenzlauer Berg from the beginning and I hold a certain reverence towards Kreuzberg because it's an autonomous, evolved district. I go shopping there, my kids go to school there. You can't just go in and push up rent prices in Kreuzberg.

But Potsdamer Straße will survive?

I don't think that my moving here will change anything. Judging from the area's characteristics, I'm pretty sure that I won't be leading in a trend. I'm not saying that I'm particularly gutsy but there are certain shops that depend on a reliable frequency of customers and that's not provided here. But it's exactly the reason I'm leaving Mitte. The clientele has changed. The bulk of my customer base – although I'll definitely lose some clients on the way – will follow me to Potsdamer Straße.

Are you talking about walk-in customers?

Yes. Stores like Schiesser and Acne need to stay in Mitte because they wouldn't survive anywhere else. They wouldn't have enough customers here. Acne appeals to a younger generation that wants good jeans at a reasonable price. They want to buy a shirt at the Adidas store and get matching jeans at the Acne shop. Makes sense.

So you're not reliant on walk-in customers and never have been?

I didn't move into a back yard because I was scared of the street. Our products aren't always self-explanatory. A lot of objects, like some of our porcelain for example, have a story to tell: the way they were manufactured, the way the artist had made a model from paper and the manufacturer tried to conserve that paper-like textuality in the porcelain. The backyard location was meant to inspire customers to listen to the whole story. I think that in the future, you'll either buy things at a very cheap price or you'll buy things that are more expensive but are filled with life.

How important is a product's manufacturing history?

A factory will have 30 to 40 employees tops. Of course big names like Gucci or Prada have their products manufactured en masse in Asian factories to keep production costs low. The makers of my products can't even afford to advertise. The markup is minimal.

Tell us one of your stories!

There's Raphaela H. from Düsseldorf who makes old power looms and there's an old man who carves out weaving shuttles for the looms. Another one makes punch cards. I'm glad these people still exist and I want to support them.

Do you go to fashion events?

I do, but not very often. I work with the same brands over long periods of time and I'll stick with them through thick and thin. There are some collections where I like the designer and appreciate his work but that just don't sell very well. In that case, the other sales will have to make up for the loss.

Other shops would just throw out anything that hasn't brought in the expected profits. How much attention do you pay to fashion trends?

Technically, I could have next winter's collection in the store in May. But I don't want that – the soonest I'll put out winter merchandise would be July or September. It's bad for business because the time span in which I can sell seasonal products is very limited. While I'm receiving my last summer products, stores in Munich and Düsseldorf are already having summer sales because their warehouses are full of next winter's products.

So the storage situation causes financial pressure.

You need to pay for all your goods, even those that you can't sell. Seasonal sale cycles have shifted. We used to have summer sales in August and winter sales in January. Nowadays, we want to sell clothes that are always available regardless of the seasons.

Was it the high rents or the commercial environment that drove you away from your Münzstraße location after seven years?

It's not about the rent. I had a lease for three to six years, I wasn't forced to leave. My landlord would have liked to see me stay in Mitte. But the environment has changed. Everyone else I knew was priced out. I was left surrounded by chain stores.

You call them chain stores. The corporations themselves prefer to describe their “flagship stores” as exclusive sites for presenting their newest goods to the world.

To me, it's just industrial production devoid of passion. They go to all the “hip” places and dislodge everyone else, even those that pioneered the development. I'm a victim of my own profession. But that's the way it goes. The old Espresso-Bar was frozen out of the area. The hairdresser had to go, so did Pro-Quadratmeter, which was a very special book store. All those shops with unique ideas had to go because rents would triple or quadruple when old lease contracts ended. The only types of stores that can persist on those conditions are Cos and Adidas.

So moving to Mitte is an image thing?

Lacoste moved out, so did Replay and Rene Lezard. Large companies might be able to afford the location but they, too, have to think about their long term investments. At first, they'll be completely euphoric about opening a store on Neue Schönhauser Straße or Münzstraße. At some point they'll either be subject to a rude awakening or they'll have made enough profit to survive global competition. But it's a bubble that can easily burst. Landlords need to think practically and realize that while they will make money off successful entrepreneurs, they must also support new and exciting ideas.

That sounds ideologically charged. A real estate manager would argue otherwise.

But it would be lucrative in the long run. If you're left with only chain stores then people will start to lose interest in the area and you run the risk of vacancies. Fasanenstraße is a good example of this. It used to be an amazing street but then property owners just wouldn't stop upping the rents even though you could get twice the area for the same price on Kurfürstendamm. It became just another boring street after that, which wouldn't have happened if rent prices would have been kept reasonable.

Let's talk about Berlin's “Old West”. There are plans for a valorization of the area around Zoologischer Garten and Bikinihaus. Did this affect your moving plans at all?

I'm a fan of western Berlin and I'm happy to see it evolve. In the long run, Mitte will remain a stomping ground for younger audiences and Kurfürstendamm will upgrade. In the end, the West might come out on top. My new location on Potsdamer Straße is halfway between Mitte and Charlottenburg. It's actually very centrally located although the area itself seems fairly remote.

(Interview: emh)