After three years of successful funding, the city of Chemnitz is ending the Kreativachse project. Today, representatives of the City of Chemnitz, funding bodies, stakeholders from business, culture and civil society as well as numerous project partners met for the closing event at the Stadtwirtschaft.
In July 2021, the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community (now the Federal Ministry of Housing, Urban Development and Building) called on local authorities to develop ideas for innovative concepts to strengthen resilience and crisis management in city centres and (sub)urban centres in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The new federal funding programme "Sustainable City Centres and Town Centres" (ZIZ) provided funding for these ideas in the period from September 2022 to November 2025.
The city of Chemnitz received around €2.6 million in federal funding from this programme for the Kreativachse Chemnitz project. Together with the city's share, around €3.3 million was therefore utilised.
The Kreativachse Chemnitz project was a project to revitalise streets close to the city centre with a high vacancy rate of commercial units on the ground floor, too little customer frequency or a lack of quality of stay. The project area covered Brühl-Boulevard, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße, parts of Georgstraße and Straße der Nationen between Karl-Marx-Monument and the bus station and continued through the pedestrian tunnels of the main railway station towards Sonnenberg. There, the creative axis connects the newly built long-distance bus terminal via Gießerstraße and Zietenstraße on Sonnenberg with the Stadtwirtschaft - an intervention area of the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025. The creative axis thus links three important subspaces in Chemnitz city centre.
Innovative concepts and ideas for use along the creative axis have enabled the sustainable revitalisation of vacant spaces, which have a positive impact on their immediate surroundings and the core area of Chemnitz city centre. Numerous private owners have made their vacant properties available for this purpose. As a result, 25 vacant shops were made usable with simple structural measures and some houses were reconnected to district heating, water and electricity. 30 units were creatively revitalised by promoting the rental and re-letting to users. These include, for example, the new craft beer bar "UBrambory" at Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse 30. Most of the new users have now reached an agreement with the owners to continue beyond the end of the subsidy.
Two city labs were created as part of the Kreativachse project - the vectorlab, an open wood workshop, and the experimental kitchen on Sonnenberg. City labs have an experimental character. They are used to try out, produce, communicate and network. They will continue to be run by the Kreatives Chemnitz industry association.
To revitalise the public space, the creative axis also improved the experience for residents and visitors with 88 new pieces of street furniture at 22 locations along the axis (e.g. the pink highlight on the square at the Edeka supermarket on Brühl, benches on the Straße der Nationen, rubbish bins, bicycle racks and five parklets). The creative axis helped with the greening of tree grates and façades on Sonnenberg, provided planters in the railway station/Georgstraße area and enabled the construction of a drinking fountain on Brühl and the removal of barriers on footpaths on Georgstraße. Four large-scale artistic façade designs in the Brühl area and street art at the fountain sites on Straße der Nationen draw attention to these areas. Empty shop windows were transformed into temporary exhibition spaces.
Together with the Brühlakteur:innen, for example, a concept was developed to stabilise and develop self-supporting networks on Brühl. The Brühlstammtisch with Brühlboulevard e. V. meets to put ideas into practice. A feasibility study on the low-threshold refurbishment of buildings has helped to quickly take the appropriate steps to refurbish the shops and is also transferable. Lengthy authorisation procedures could often be avoided.
A creative axis fund enabled the funding of micro-projects by committed citizens and initiatives in the project area of the Chemnitz creative axis. Decisions were made by a local committee on site.
In the Kreativachse project, the City of Chemnitz worked closely with the industry association for the cultural and creative industries in Chemnitz and the surrounding area (Kreatives Chemnitz e. V.) as an implementation partner and service provider in order to be able to manage the large number of small-scale measures in this relatively short funding period. The municipal property and building management company (GGG) provided support with the rental.
Within the legal framework, the city of Chemnitz found room for manoeuvre and used it in such a way that experiments were made possible and could be implemented quickly. Thanks to the Kreativachse project, Chemnitz now has a toolbox of concepts and instruments that can also be used to tackle similar problems in other parts of the city. The City of Chemnitz believes that the federal government and the Free State of Saxony could transfer the positive experiences with the ZIZ programme to other urban development funding programmes.
Comprehensive project documentation will be provided in a brochure published by the City of Chemnitz in the near future.
Further information can be found at
To the federal ZIZ programme:
www.innenstadtprogramm.bund.de/Webs/ZIZ/DE/aktuelles/artikel/ZIZ_Bundesprogramm_Broschuere.html