German Cities Council Demands Voice in Potential Galeria Store Closures

The background is the company's announcement that it is reviewing the profitability of 33 of the 83 Galeria locations nationwide and may close some of them. According to information from the federal states, five locations in Baden-Württemberg and four branches in Rhineland-Palatinate are also affected. In North Rhine-Westphalia, there are still 17 Galeria branches, seven of which are being reviewed for profitability, with possible consequences such as downsizing, rent reduction, closure, or continuation.

Background: Signa Insolvency and Takeover

Schuchardt also demanded swift and coherent concepts for subsequent use in the event of branch closures. Otherwise, a "Abwärtsspirale" threatens for the affected inner cities. The works council is also fundamentally willing to engage in talks. Andrea Grisail, chairwoman of the works council of the Galeria branch at the Rhein-Ruhr-Zentrum in Mülheim, said: "Wir sind grundsätzlich froh, wenn Galeria Gespräche über eine tragfähige Zukunft führt".

The group is thus once again facing a profound upheaval. At the beginning of 2024, Galeria's parent company Signa, which employs around 12,000 people, had filed for insolvency for the third time within four years. The department store group was subsequently taken over from the insolvent Signa Holding of the Austrian entrepreneur René Benko by a US investment company with German participation. As part of the takeover, the number of branches was reduced from 92 to 83. Around four weeks ago, the Galeria Group had received a loan commitment of 160 million euros to secure the restructuring.

Experiences from the Municipalities

Several examples from North Rhine-Westphalia show what consequences vacant department store properties can have for municipalities. In Gelsenkirchen, the subsequent use of the former department store building in a prime inner-city location has not been achieved after three years of vacancy. In Wuppertal, no follow-up use has been found either; the city wants to buy the former Kaufhof building and develop it itself. The landlord of the former Kaufhof branch in downtown Essen, the Cologne-based administrative company Dr. Koerfer, said it was relieved to be able to terminate the lease with Signa Holding. Dr. Koerfer described: "In den Jahrzehnten, die wir da an verschiedene Betreiber vermietet haben, ist immer hart verhandelt worden. Aber am Ende haben wir uns auch immer geeinigt. Diesmal fühlen wir uns erpresst." Out of annoyance that the branch had not even been returned in a broom-clean condition, the landlord had garbage dumped in front of the former Galeria headquarters.

According to the Städtetag, the city of Essen had to cope with the closure of three department store branches: a Hertie branch in the Rüttenscheid district, the anchor tenant of the Limbecker Platz shopping center, and the former Kaufhof branch in the city center. In Herne, the city bought the heritage-protected former Hertie building after years of vacancy and later sold it to an investor; renovation and re-letting took more than ten years in total. In Recklinghausen, on the other hand, the heritage-protected former Karstadt building has been redeveloped since 2023 as a "Marktquartier" with medical practices, a hotel, a daycare center, senior apartments, restaurants, and a discount supermarket.

Reaction and Sources

The Städtetag justified its demand for municipal co-determination with the experiences from these past proceedings. Cities and municipalities would be directly affected when large inner-city department store locations disappeared and would need reliable information and planning certainty in order to be able to react to changes. The demand is directed at the management of the Galeria Group; no reaction from the company was initially known.

The article was published on 24.07.2026, among other things, in the Deutschlandfunk program and on WDR.de at 4:05 p.m. under the title "Deutscher Städtetag fordert Mitspracherecht bei Galeria". The sources cited were the German Städtetag, the Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa), the WDR archive and the ARD media library evaluation, as well as an interview with Andrea Grisail.