Unibail-Rodamco, Europe’s biggest listed property company, is reportedly in talks to build a shopping centre in Hamburg’s HafenCity urban development.

Unibail-Rodamco, Europe’s biggest listed property company, is reportedly in talks to build a shopping centre in Hamburg’s HafenCity urban development.

The retail scheme would be built in Überseequartier, HafenCity’s retail area, news wire Bloomberg reported on the basis of inside sources.

Unibail-Rodamco declined to comment on the reports.

Überseequartier is partly owned by Dutch state-owned ‘bad bank’ Propertize, created in 2013 to wind down the assets of SNS Property Finance, and German developer Gross & Partner. Dutch banking and insurance group ING, originally the third partner in the project, sold its stake in 2008 after receiving state support amid the financial crisis.

According to Bloomberg, HafenCity Hamburg CEO Jürgen Bruns-Berentelg said in an interview in late April that Hamburg was in talks with an international investor who would spend about €1 bn by 2019 to complete the Überseequartier project, which stalled after the financial crisis. He declined to name the investor.

Speaking to PropertyEU at Expo Real in 2013, Bruns-Berentelg said that some €8 bn in private investment and €2.5 bn in public resources would be ploughed into the massive port development, which aims to transform 157 hectares of docks and warehouses into 6,000 apartments and commercial space for some 45,000 workers.

Bruns-Berentelg said that 450 companies had committed to start up operations or move into the area, which is Germany’s premier port and the second-largest harbour in Europe after Rotterdam.

Unibail-Rodamco is Germany’s second-biggest mall operator through its majority stake in Essen-based MFI Management für Immobilien. The Franco-Dutch company bought a 51% stake in the holding company that owns MFI in 2012 from New York-based private equity firm Perella Weinberg Partners, which retained 49%.

In February, Unibail-Rodamco closed the acquisition of a 50% stake in the Centro mall in Oberhausen for €535 mln.