Sylt is the North Sea island beloved of Germany’s high earners: the dunes, the thatched-roof houses, a summer colony whose whole image rests on the idea that nothing there ever really changes. In Tinnum, a discount grocer is about to test the idea.
According to euronews, Lidl is building on a 16,000-square-metre site, and the project is not merely a store. The ground floor gets a state-of-the-art supermarket. Directly above it go fifteen new flats, between 44 and 78 square metres each, expressly designed for permanent residence — intended, above all, for commuters who need affordable housing close to their workplace. On an island where locals have been priced out of the postcard, euronews calls it a genuine breakthrough.
Fifteen flats. On Sylt, that is what a housing strategy looks like. Mayor Tina Haltermann praised the scheme as a pioneering step, one that shows how modern retail and residential space can be combined while using as little land as possible. The island is short of the second thing and famous for the first.
The old building is not being demolished, which would be the expected story. The existing Lidl is being retained and recycled, merged with the new complex into what the plans describe as a local services centre: a pharmacy, a health and beauty store and regional businesses are to move into the existing areas, a single point of contact for the people of Sylt and their visitors.
The construction itself is a study in what the brochure economy now requires. Lidl is using a resource-efficient hybrid timber method, with partial greening of the façade and roof and radical material recycling: outside, processed concrete is reused as paving; inside, secondary plastics and recycled glass and aluminium. In energy terms the complex is designed to be completely self-sufficient — a large rooftop photovoltaic installation supplies green electricity, and waste heat from the product refrigeration is captured via cutting-edge ventilation systems and heat pumps to heat and cool the building. The lettuce will warm the tenants. That is not a metaphor; that is the ventilation system.
For the customers, the 1,600-square-metre sales floor offers extra-wide aisles and a new style of product presentation. There are 184 parking spaces, because on this island shopping must remain relaxed, and three charging columns with six points delivering ultra-fast DC power between 60 and 180 kilowatts.
The flats run from 44 to 78 square metres and sit directly on top of a Lidl. On the island of the rich, euronews calls this a revolution.